1920-04-16

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Eleventh Annual Report of the Civil Service Commission.-Rt. Hon. Mr. Sifton.

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Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Minister of the Interior) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 68, to amend the Soldier Settlement Act, 1919.
.Some hon. MEMBERS: Explain:
Mr. MEIGHEN:: The purpose of this Bill is to afford greater advantages to soldiers who come in under the Act and settle on improved lands, than to those who settle on unimproved lands.


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Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.

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Bill No. 56, (Letter E of the Senate), to amend the Technical Education Act.-Hon. Mr. Calder-read the first time.

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On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. J. D. REID (Minister of Railways):: Yesterday the leader of the Opposition ((Mr. Mackenzie King) asked two questions. The first was as to when the report of the Department of Railways and Canals for the last fiscal year would be brought down. The deputy tells me that the major portion of the report is printed; that the balance has just been sent to the Bureau to be printed, and that the whole report will be ready for laying on the table of the House in about ten days. The second question was as to when the report of the Board of Canadian National Railways would be brought down. The report will be submitted by the Board of Managemerft at the annual meeting which has been called for the 10th May and will be available for publication after that date.



HEARST PUBLICATIONS.

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On the Orders of the Day:
(Mr. J. W. EDWARDS (Frontenac):	I
should like to ask the Acting Prime Minister if the Government intends, during the present session, to introduce the necessary legislation to prohibit from circulation in this country those infamous sheets known as the Hearst publications.
Rt. Hon. Sir GEORGE POSTER:: The
matter is under consideration. I cannot give my hon. friend any more definite answer at the moment.



LORD JELLICOE'S REPORTS.

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On the Orders of the Day:	-
Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING:: The
Minister of the Naval Service kindly said the other day that he would endeavour to secure copies of Lord .Tellicoe's reports to the Governments of Australia and New Zealand. I omitted at the time to ask with regard to a report made to the Government of India. If it would be possible to obtain that report at the same time, I should be much obliged.


Hon. C. C. BALLANTYNE (Minister of the Naval Service):: I was not aware that Lord Jellieoe had made a report to India; but inasmuch as apparently he has, I will see what we can do in that regard also.
[Mr. Meigrhen.l



FISHERIES TREATY.

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On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. D. D. McKENZIE (Cape Breton North and Victoria):: I should like to ask the
Minister of Marine when the House may expect that he will present for ratification the Fisheries Treaty that has been negotiated, but that has not yet been presented to the House.


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: (Minister of Marine): We are daily waiting some word of the Treaty from Washington. I am sorry I cannot give a more definite answer, but the Canadian Government expect that within a short time the Treaty will come to hand.



COMMERCIAL FEEDING STUFFS-BILL No. 32 WITHDRAWN.

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On the order being called' for the second reading of Bill No. 32, respecting commercial feeding stuffs.-Hon. Mr. Rowell.
Hon. N. W. ROWELL (Minister of Health):: It is not my intention to ask the House to give second reading to this Bill at the present time, but I move that the order be discharged and that permission be given to withdraw the Bill, my reason for this being as follows. The Bill when introduced, as I explained on the first reading, simply consolidated the existing laws. The Bill included the provisions relating to commercial feeding stuffs which were incorporated in the Adulteration of Foods Act and some minor amendments which in the administration of the law had been shown to be desirable. Since the introduction of the Bill, representations have been made by important agricultural organizations throughout Canada that a much more comprehensive law than we have hitherto had is desirable on this important question. The Department of Agriculture has also given the matter careful consideration and is of the same opinion. I, therefore, ask leave to withdraw the Bill, and a new Bill, more comprehensive in its scope, will be introduced by the Minister of Agriculture.


Mr. J. A. ROBB (Chateauguay-Hunting-don):: Before this motion is acceded to, I should like to know from the minister in charge of the Bill if rumours that are floating around through the departments are correct, namely, that there was a difference of opinion as between different departments, and that the Minister of Health (Mr. Rowell) who has this Bill in charge was roundly brought to task by

his colleague, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Tolmie), because he was infringing upon his rights.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I can allay the anxiety of my hon. friend by saying that the rumour, like the majority of other rumours, lacks any foundation in fact. It is the product of a fertile imagination.


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Motion agreed to, and order discharged.


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The House resumed the adjourned debate on the motion of Hon. J. D. Reid (Minister of Railways), for the Second Reading of Bill No. 54, to confirm the agreement dated eighth day of March, 1920, between His Majesty the King and the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada for the acquisition by His Majesty of the capital stock of the said Grand Trunk Railway Company, except the four per cent guaranteed stock.-(Resumed from Thursday, April 15.)
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, I moved .the adjournment of the debate yesterday, but I have no desire to say anything more at present with respect to the Bill before the House.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, in view of the somewhat extraordinary circumstances attending the presentation of this Bill I wish to say a few words, largely in reply to the speech of the Minister of Railways (Hon. J. D. Reid) in moving the second reading yesterday.
It can hardly be expected that hon. gentlemen on this side who opposed the Grand Trunk Acquisition Bill at every stage of its progress will now turn about and give the principle of this Bill their approval, because nothing has taken place since the matter was before the House last year to induce hon. members 'to take that attitude. If we were justified last fall in opposing the Grand Trunk Acquisition Bill, cur attitude is even more firmly established iby the conditions which have since attended the operation of railways by the Government.
The Bill before us involves three things, in the main. There is a correction of some errors that crept into the proceedings, and there are provisions to confirm the agreement with these errors rectified, and, in the broader sense, to confirm the agreement itself. There are many subjects which can 83
quite legitimately be opened up and discussed in connection with Hie points that are raised by the Bill. It can be said with a good deal of force that there is not much use in going over- the ground that we covered last year and in discussing at length a measure which was approved by the majority composing the Government side of the House. But it does not follow that because there is a majority in this House to vote down the views and suggestions of the Opposition, the majority is right. It is good sense and sound logic that when the opportunity presents itself for those who are in the minority to assert their views and to back them up with the proper argument, it is their duty to do so until they shall finally triumph. If that is right, then what is good business principles do not prevail in this Parliament then we have the old right of appealing to Caesar. We say, therefore, that as regards this agreement, which we think is bad; which we believe to be not in the best interests of the country; which we think is burdening the Canadian people with unnecessary and unparalleled liabilities, we have the right to carry the question to the highest tribunal available, that is, to submit it to the will of the people as expressed at the polls whenever the opportunity presents itself.
It Is one of the weak habits on the Government side of the House that no matter how exhaustively we discuss a given question from this side, no matter how clearly we indicate our opposition, if for the sake of saving time or trouble or for some other good reason, we on this side do not put ourselves on record against it, in a few hours, a few days, or a few months the assertion is flung across the floor: Oh, you have not voted against that measure, consequently you have no right to say a word against it. On this occasion at all events I propose to save myself from any accusation of that kind. When it comes to ratification of the agreement, no matter what I may say about those parts of the Bill which are of a legal character and merely remedial, I will certainly take an attitude consistent with that which I took on a former occasion.
The question, Sir, of Government ownership is a contentious one, and one on which, I suppose, no party in this House is unanimous. It is hardly necessary for me to say that when I speak on any subject in this House I express merely my own views. I speak for no party or for no person other than myself. I take an attitude consistent with that which I have maintained evar



since I first had a voice in this House when I say that the'best interests of the country can be served by the utilizing in a private way of the brain and capital of the people and all the best elements that can be brought behind them. It may be splendid in theory to say that we shall own our own telegraph lines, our own waterworks in our cities, our own electric lights, and all that kind of thing. It sounds splendid to say that we shall own our own railways and canals and our own steamboat lines; it looks like the carrying out of a big, comprehensive national idea. But what the citizens of this country want, what the business men of this country want, is good service, sound development and sure advancement in the best possible way and at the least possible cost. I have no doubt that some people in the West were burned, if I may use that expression, in the old days by the monopoly exercised by the Canadian k Pacific. There was no competition; The Canadian Pacific Railway Company were absolute masters of the situation. They could charge what they liked; they could move goods as they pleased, and accordingly a prejudice was created against private ownership. But we grew out of those conditions. That great company is to-day carrying on efficient operation, but it is not in a position to impose unfair conditions upon any one. We have the strength of private ownership, with all its force, ingenuity and ambition, and we have control and regulation of that private enterprise by a Government body which will not permit it to abuse its privileges. That, Sir, is my view of the kind of service that we should have for the public. That is the best and the most up-to-date kind , of service that can be had, as well as the least expensive; it is a service which, through the agency of the Government and the Board of Railway Commissioners, is entirely subservient to the will of the people. That is the attitude which I take, and that is what the people, after a trial of this fetish of Government ownership, will approve as the proper policy for this country.
Under these circumstances, Sir, I hardly think it will be surprising to any hon. gentleman in this House that I am not personally in favour of the acquisition of this or any other road that is not a paying proposition. I come from the Maritime Provinces, and when we say anything about government ownership our opponents immediately have recourse to the Intercolonial railway to buttress up their arguments. We are told that we have this railway and that
[Mr McKenzie.]
it is continually incurring deficits which the country has to shoulder. Well, Sir, the Intercolonial railway is not a business proposition, nor was it constructed as such. It is a part of the bargain of Confederation so far as the Maritime Provinces are concerned. Before Confederation we had our trade across the Bay of Fundy with the United States; we sold our fish, coal and lumber, bought flour and other goods, and generally carried on a happy and prosperous trade with the nation across the border. At Confederation a tariff wall was put up between ourselves and the United States, and the promoters of Confederation said to us in the Maritime Provinces :	" We will make up for the deficiency which you will suffer by giving you connection with the interior of Canada; we shall build the Intercolonial railway as part of our agreement so that you may send your goods to Quebec, Montreal, Toronto, and the cities that may spring up in the West, and you will be able to obtain goods in return from these places; this will be a substitute for the advantages you now enjoy in your sea trade." This, Sir, was nothing but part of the pact of Confederation, which was something unsought by us. I am sure the people of Nova Scotia cannot be said to have pushed themselves into Confederation; rather, Confederation, with these conditions, was forced upon them, and I cannot stand here and allow to pass unchallenged any suggestion that we were specially favoured at the time of Confederation, or that any particular benefit accrues to the Maritime Provinces now, by reason of the advantages which we may derive from the Intercolonial railway. That railway, I reiterate, must stand as part of the Confederation agreement, as it stood at the outset, unless some hon. gentlemen are anxious to make new bargains and conditions. That is all I have to say in reference to the Intercolonial railway in its relation to the subject of public ownership.
Coming more closely to this Bill, I desire to pay some attention to the arguments advanced by the minister (Hon. Mr. Reid) from their legal standpoint, and to the opinions which he has read. It would be presumptuous for a man like myself, Mr. Speaker, to question in any way an express and definite opinion of any counsel of eminence in the Old Land, and equally presumptuous would it be were I to put up my own opinion against the views of the Minister of Justice or of his departmeht after a careful, considered, and mature expression on any legal question. But I ob-

seived, and every hon. gentleman in the House must have observed-especially every hon. gentleman with legal training-that the letters received by the Department of Railways from eminent counsel in England are wisely replete with safety valves, hedging and loopholes, by which they can get out if finally anything hinges upon the opinion they have given. Any one could give such opinions as we have had here. These opinions assert that if this thing or the other happens, if so and so is the case, such and such consequences will follow. But that is not the sort of opinion that the Canadian people expect in connection with this very important bargain. They expect a positive legal opinion that will be regarded as final and binding. Sudh an opinion we have not. Of course, the opinion of the lawyers of the Grand Trunk Railway, who have no difficulty whatever in giving us the most positive assurance on the matter, is that this agreement is all right. But Sir Charles Russell and the counsel associated with him in the Old Country are too experienced and astute to give any such unequivocal assurance; and I observe that our own Department of Justice, with the very excellent talent which it possesses, has thus far, at least so far as I have gathered, declined to put on paper anything in the shape of a definite opinion. Speaking for myself as a lawyer of somewhat large experience I would have the greatest possible respect for the views of the Deputy Minister of Justice if he had given us a considered, written opinion on this point. But that careful, practical, shrewd lawyer of large experience has declined-whether or not he has refused I will not suggest- to give this House any opinion at all, positive or otherwise, as to whether the law was complied with in the convening of this meeting. I was surprised to note some of the arguments put forward in these letters that were written by counsel in England. They say_6hat it would not matter much whether these parties who were evidently not notified had even been present and had cast their votes, because there was such an overwhelming majority against them that the result would be unaffected by their decision. Now, Sir, that is no argument whatever; and, more than that, it is not the law; for the very first principle of British jurisprudence is that no man can be affected either in his person or in his property without being given due notice of any proceedings that are instituted against him. Consequently the law of S3J
companies-and it is the A, B, C of fair play-is that every man who is interested in a meeting must have notice of that meeting. It does not of course follow that he will be present in person or by proxy, but he is bound to receive notice; and he attends or stays away at his own hazard and on his own responsibility. It must be well understood, however, that if we are to have-a legally constituted meeting every one interested must be given due notice. The Act which we put through last fall says itself that every one of those companies has a legal interest and right to vote, and they should therefore all have had notice.. But they did not .receive notice, according; to the information which has so far been vouchsafed this House. Those parties in Canada or the United States who hold stooks that are mentioned in the preamble to the Act were not notified. I do not want to labour that point unduly because it lies with the Government and it is for them to consider it. Those parties were not notified; they were not present; and! if I had to give an opinion I should ba-obliged to say that the meeting was not properly constituted, by reason of the fact that all the shareholders had not been notified, and that any action taken at the meeting could certainly not be binding on those who were not present. I think this is the reason why this Bill is brought here. It is introduced for the purpose of ratifying an illegal meeting. Now, have we the power to ratify it? I am glad that the Minister of Justice and other eminent lawyers supporting the Government are here to-day. I now put this suggestion to the Government, and particularly to the Minister of Justice, that if there is any defect in this agreement which deals with the property of foreigners on one side-because even if they are Englishmen or Scotchmen or Irishmen owning stock and living in the Old Country, they are foreigners to us so far as the legislative authority of this Parliament is concerned -we have no jurisdiction over them. They are beyond our sphere, our influence and our control. They are parties to an agreement which is irregular, and can we by any action of this Parliament ratify that agreement so that it will be binding upon men who own property in their own right, and in their own possession beyond the-jurisdiction of Canada? I may be wrong, * but as a law student and a practitioner L learned from the English cases that we cannot legislate in such a way as to affect; property and personnel beyond our legis-



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Jative scope and jurisdiction. I submit therefore that if there is a man living in France, Switzerland, England, Ireland or Scotland or some other place "who has some [DOT] of this stock in his possession, we cannot ilegislate here so as to compel him to do anything about that stock. Suppose we pass an Act of Parliament saying that he shall deliver that stock up to a judge in London and he refuses to do it, what can we do about it? We have no jurisdiction over him personally, we cannot summon him to the bar of this House, and we cannot hale him before one of our judges and bring him into contempt, because he is beyond the jurisdiction of our courts and of Parliament.
Mr. MIDDLEBRO:: Is not the stock
merely the evidence of title to property situated in this country?


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I do not so regard it. It is negotiable property. The owner buys a thousand dollar debenture stock, he puts it in his pocket and it is his property.
. Mr. MIDDLEBRO: It is the same as a deed of property in this country.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Far from it. The
stock is in itself an intrinsic entity separate and apart from the basis which gives it value. We could do what we liked in this country with the material assets of the company. We could take up the rails, refuse the company the right to run their locomotives, we could cancel their charter, and I suppose that indirectly the stock would not be very much good, but that is something that this Parliament would never think of doing. My contention is that we have no power to deal with stock held by a party beyond the jurisdiction of this Parliament. If either the property, or the person, was within the parliamentary power of this country or in territory with regard to which we could effectively legislate, I think without doubt we could control that property and person, but when both person and property are beyond the pale of our jurisdiction, I think that we legislate in vain when we pass a Bill that will have ino effect upon them. Without labouring that point further, because my individual opinion may perhaps be of no value, I will merely say that that is the view which I take of the law.
In the proceedings of this House we find the right hon. the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) making preparations looking to permission being given to this Parliament Toy an extension of the British North America Act to exercise extra territorial

jurisdiction so that laws that may be passed here will have the same extra territorial jurisdiction and effect as if they had been passed by the Mother of Parliaments in England. If we have not that power there seems to be in the mind of the Government a necessity for obtaining it. We have not got it now. We may have it by and by if we get that amendment. But we are dealing now with present conditions. We have no opinion from any Canadian or British counsel who says positively that this meeting was properly held and, I submit that a search through the decisions of the English courts will show that we cannot in this Parliament ratify what has taken place. We could of course ratify anything that had to do with Canadian subjects or people living within Canada, but I submit that while we may pass this Bill it will really have no effect. That is the view I take upon that point and consequently I assert that this agreement has not been properly put through, that the Act, chapter 17 of the Acts of the special session of last year, has not been complied with; that really nothing has been done right and that if we want to get out of this 'agreement, or to modify it, we should begin at the beginning and go through the various stages which are necessary to an agreement and which are in conformity with Ithe law.
There afe some points in connection with the agreement itself which I wish to touch upon lightly. There was a provision put into Bill No. 33 which was before us at the special session last year for the acquisition by His Majesty of the Grand Trunk Railway system, to which I wish to call your attention. In that Bill there was section 8 which read as follows:
The Government may lend to the said Committee of Management, upon the notes or other obligations of the Grand Trunk, such sums as the Government may from time to time deem necessary for the carrying on of the operation or improvement of the Grand Trunk system.
That provision was so peculiar and unbusinesslike that after hearing the arguments from this side of the House the hon. gentleman who had charge of the Bill withdrew it. It was dropped. It was so absurd because this road will become the property of the Government and when this country owns it the country will start borrowing money from itself carrying on its own business and lending on its own note. It is just like a man who expects to build a house; he puts his own note into the bank, and gets the money; the note falls due and he must pay it. There is nobody else who is responsible for it and he has to play back

and forth with whatever credit he may have himself. Would it not be as well for the Government to take their own money, put it into this road and deal with it in a straightforward way? So absurd did the whole matter appear to the Government themselves that they withdrew that section. But, identically the same thing appears in the agreement. At page 4 of the agreement we find this:
The Managing Committee may, with the consent of the Governor in Council, borrow from the Government, on Grand Trunk notes or other obligations or securities approved by the Governor in Council, for the carrying on of the operation or improvement of the Grand Trunk system. It shall continue to act until the preference and common stocks are transferred to or vested in the Government, when they shall be discharged.
We have here the same idea exactly. What would a business man think of it? We are going to own the Grand Trunk railway. It will be going on in the name of the Grand Trunk Railway Company but we are going to own the stock, which is the wo'king machinery of it, and them we are going to start lending money to ourselves on such terms as we in consultation with ourselves think are satisfactory to ourselves. Let us imagine the Minister of Railways before the Government with the sweat rolling down Ins face trying to convince the Minister of Justice that the credit of Canada is absolutely good for some $50,000,000 to go into the Grand Trunk Railway system and on the other hand the Minister of Justice arguing hard against him that the credit of Canada is not good and that we cannot give him the money.
That, Sir, is the position in which we are placed, and nothing could be more childish. Yet this House, with all the solemnity of the Parliament of a great country-aye, of the great nation into which we have so happily	developed-is called upon in
solemn form to ratify a transaction of that kind. 1 say, Sir, that such a thing should not be in the agreement. It was taken out of the Act by the Government themselves as being an unbusinesslike proposition and why should it make its appearance again in the form of the agreement. There was no authority to place it in the agreement because nothing should appear there except what is embodied in the Act. 'If we had anything to say about it, or if it were open to us to move an amendment to this document, it certainly would be a legitimate proceeding to move to strike it out. It is mere camouflage to submit this to the judgment of the House because there it is for
good or for ill. The last word has been said in the matter, the document is signed and sealed and completed and delivered by the Government. Then they come to this House and say: Pass judgment upon this thing. Throughout the two sessions that were held last year the Minister of Immigration and Colonization had a happy phrase by which he arrayed his fiiends behind him in a solid phalanx. He would say: This thing may not be just the very best thing in the world, but if you do not vote for it there will be a general election. That crack of the whip was always successful. Perhaps once in a while a man not altogether amenable to the crack of the whip was found breaking away, but he did it at the peril of his life, politically speaking. I suppose there has never been an occasion when the Minister of Immigration and Colonization has had a better chance of cracking the whip than on the present occasion. He can say: This is the fulfilment of a pledge of the Government, in this is involved their lifeblood, our very souls depend upon this thing, and' if you do not vote for it away she goes. With a whip of that kind in the hands of the Government and with a following such as they have trained to their will and wish, there is riot much question as to what will happen when the bell rings for a division upon this agreement. But it is our duty, and it is my duty as a member of this House to oppose the Bill and agreement.
At this point Mr. George William Allan, member for South Winnipeg, who has been absent from Parliament for some time because of ill health, entered the Chamber and took his seat. The speech of Mr. McKenzie was interrupted by applause in the Chamber.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I am delighted, Mr. Speaker, to find that after all there are some splendid things and men in the grand old Conservative party, and that we have with us once more our genial and delightful friend from Winnipeg.
1 was saying, Sir, when we were so happily interrupted by the entrance into the House of our good friend (Mr. Allan) that no matter what the decision of hon. gentlemen opposite may be upon the facts, it is the duty of members on this side, who-have different views, to put those views squarely and honestly before the conscience and judgment of this House, and if the majority do otherwise than sustain the ease that we are presenting, then their blood will be upon their own heads. We are as

the watchmen upon the walls. I am glad to see some honest clergymen in front of me. They know what the watchmen are told to do. If they cry aloud and warn the people, they the watchmen will, of course, escape with their lives. But when the destruction comes, woe unto the people who refuse to pay attention to 'the warning voice.
In view of the fact that it is only a few months ago that we went thoroughly and fully into every phase of this case, I do not think I am justified in detaining the House any longer. I say, Sir, that the Government were not justified in taking over this road in view of the report of the Drayton-Acworth Commission, who, after going fully into the matter, declared that its acquisition would be a bad bargain; that the road does not pay its way, and has not been kept up, so that it will take $50,000,000 of money to put it into good and decent shape -at all events it would have taken that sum three years ago when the report in question was made, and I suppose it is safe to say it will take three times as much now. However that Commission reported that the road is not paying its way, it is in a dilapidated condition, and there is no hope of the company paying its way for many years to come. I therefore say it is a bad bargain for us to carry out, and for that reason we should not take the road over. I think that every man who has the best interests of this country at heart would leave the Grand Trunk to work out their own salvation, to carry forward their works in the best way they could, and with their own talent, and with the money that they could put into the railway, keep it going to the best advantage of themselves and of the people.
Let me say again, Sir, that I am not to be understood as advocating the shortening or in any way cutting down the advantages that the people of this country will have in respect of transportation. I submit, Sir, that we should have all the transportation that the people of Canada require; but that can be carried on by private ownership, and by such management, equipment, and business, as we find in the case of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Things should be left in that condition, and the Government should devote its attention to seeing that such operations are properly regulated, that every opportunity needed by the public is afforded, and that every dollar invested in this country has a fair show and no favour. I submit, Sir. that

those are the principles which, if followed, will make of Canada a great country.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Hon. W. S. FIELDING (Shelburne and Queen's):: For the reasons which have already been mentioned by my hon. friend (Mr. McKenzie) I think it is not desirable to have a renewal of the contest of last session over this Grand Trunk question, but there are one or two thoughts which I desire to express. I think it is unfortunate for the ministry, unfortunate for the House, and unfortunate for the country that when the Government comes to us on this Grand Trunk business they are in a tremendous hurry. The last session of Parliament was called for a special purpose, but after that purpose had been accomplished, after the minister leading the House had practically announced the day of prorogation, after he had advised us to pack our trunks and be ready to depart, after some of the members had acted upon the advice and had departed, the Government brought before Parliament this Grand Trunk Railway Bill, one of the most important measures ever submitted to it. They then told us that they were in a desperate hurry, and that nothing could wait. The session was pressed on, and morning, noon and night this Parliament was kept sitting in order that the Government might rush this measure through in a tremendous hurry-it was a rush order. Now the Government are here again on the same subject. They were in such a rush last session that they did not even take the time, although they made provision to pay the price-there was no weakness in that part of the arrangement-they did not even take the time to secure the title to the property for which they were paying. They made provision for payment,-there was no trouble about that, there was no weakness in that, nobody suggested there was any difficulty there-but now they have discovered that they are going to pay money for property which they have not acquired, and they are coming here to-day to secure amendments to the existing legislation in order that they may acqtiire a property which they last session agreed to pay for without making any inpuiries about it at all,
That illustrates the way in which the Government have been handling this Grand Trunk business, and it ought to make some impression upon the country. It is strange that in this connection the Government always wishes to do the business in rush order.

I was not present when the Minister of Railways explained the Bill at the first reading, but from the reports published 1 understand he stated that the only necessity for this Bill was in respect to the correction of these small errors,-the insertion of the two railway lines which were not included in the schedule. Well, if that is all that is necessary, we can agree, I am sure, to help the Government correct their mistake; we all ought to be ready to do that. But if that is all that is necessary, why do the Government wish to open up the whole question and ask us to again ratify this contract? Last session the House by a substantial majority decided in favour of the Government's policy. We who differed from that policy bowed, as we were bound to bow, to the decision of the House. But why are we to be again asked to open up the question, especially if it is not necessary? Having got the authority of Parliament last year, why does not the Government act upon it? Why come and ask the House to again vote them authority if everything is all right? "Oh," says the minister, " there is some trouble about the regularity of the meeting in London; it appears that some shareholders of the old Great Western 'Company, which was many years ago amalgamated with the Grand Trunk 'Company, did not get adequate notice." My hon. friend from Cape Breton North (Mr. McKenzie) rather thinks the notice was not adequate. I am not going to endorse his view in that regard; I am going to accept the Government's view that everything was regular.
The matter has been investigated by the Grand Trunk Company's solicitors in London-able men. They, according to the ministerial statement, have said that the. notice was all right. The Government have their solicitors in London-able men too, and they say it was all right. In both cases eminent counsel have been employed to confirm that opinion, and they say, '"The meeting was all right." Then the matter is referred to us in Canada, and the Minister of Justice tells us that it was all right. Well, if all these authorities say the whole proceeding was regular, and the so-called defect has no foundation in fact, why do the Government come here and ask us to pass on it again?
The Minister of Railways has an answer to that. He says that if there is a doubt over there it could be corrected by the company, but it would be a
4 p.m. great deal of trouble to get another meeting of the Grand Trunk shareholders. I waht to relieve his mind
on that point and to tell him that there is at this moment a notice in the Canada Gazette calling a meeting of the Grand Trunk shareholders fifteen days from the present date. At that meeting they could do all that is required in the way of rectifying any irregularities in connection with the former meeting. But the hon. gentleman is not content to leave the matter to them; he comes back here and although he says it is not necessary that this agreement should be again ratified, he asks us to ratify it again. His action gives rise to the suspicion-and people in matters of this kind cannot help being suspicious-that there is some object in view beyond what the hon. minister has told us. If there is nothing to do but to simply correct these small errors, -and we are unanimous in joining to correct them,-why go any further? Why not be content to say: This is an Act to correct two small mistakes made a year ago, and let us deal with it as such? But no, my hon. friend is not content to do that, although if there was any defect in regard to the arrangements for calling the previous meeting, it is entirely possible for that defect to be made good by the meeting of the Grand Trunk shareholders to be held on the 29th instant.
The question is raised: Is this agreement entirely in conformity with the Act Parliament passed last session? When the Minister of Railways was then asked that the agreement itself should be submitted to Parliament for ratification before finally becoming effective, his reply was:	The
agreement will have to be in accordance with the Act. We have the Act and the agreement before us, and my hon. friend from North 'Cape Breton has called attention to what seems to be a very important fact. When the legislation of last session was before the House we found that the Government had included the following:
The Government may lend to the said Committee of {Management-
That is the committee of management to be appointed under the first suggested arrangement.
.-upon the notes or other obligations of the Grand Trunk such sums as the Government may from time to time deem necessary for the carrying on or operation or improvement of the said Grand Trunk system.
Attention was called to that in the House, and the Government wisely, I think, decided to strike it out. But it now appears in another form very much like the abandoned clause. My hon. friend (Mr. McKenzie) has read the words; let me repeat

them. Although Parliament distinctly refused to put any such provision in the Act, yet we find in the agreement the following:
The Managing Committee may, with the consent of the Governor in Council, borrow from the Government on Grand Trunk notes or other obligations or securities approved by the Governor in Council for the carrying on or improvement or operation of the Grand Trunk system.
There is no mention of any particular sum, and we have no intimation as to whether we are to be asked to authorize any particular sum, but there is in this agreement, notwithstanding that Parliament decided to strike out a clause of similar character, that very clause in another form, and in that respect I submit the agreement is not in conformity with the Act. If that be the case, if we find in that respect something in the agreement which was not authorized by Parliament, I suppose a critical examination by members of the legal profession, who are better qualified than I am for that work, may possibly disclose other discrepancies.
I think the Minister of Railways should be fair with us in this matter. Let us take him at his word. If this agreement is all right, if the Government have only put in the agreement that which Parliament authorized, and if the only thing necessary is the correction of these two small errors of last session, let the Government be content to correct those errors and there will be a unanimous vote of the House. But it is not fair to raise the whole question and challenge us to ratify an agreement which, they say, has already been sufficiently ratified.


Rt. Hon. C. J. DOHERTY (Minister of Justice):: I do not think it will be necessary for me to detain the House for any length of time to say what seems to be necessary to meet the observations from the other side. In the first place, there seems to be a disposition to attach a very much exaggerated meaning and importance to this particular Bill, and that perhaps is not unnatural, for it seems to be inspired by an innate suspicion, but I do not know whether it is a suspicion of everything that proceeds from these benches, or of everything that is connected with the Grand Trunk.


Mr. McMASTER:: Both.


Charles Joseph Doherty: 
Mr. DEVLIN:: Why was that?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Because those were the provisions of the charter of the company. It is to be pointed out that what the statute called for was not for a decision of a majority of the individual shareholders, but for the majority of the voting power. There is no place where the voting power could be determined or ascertained except in the charter or other statutes regulating the company. As I understand the matter, the reference to the respective voters is found in the Act that amalgamated the Grand Trunk and the Canada Atlantic; but that
statute contented itself, when the amalgamation was brought about, with leaving to the different classes of stockholders the voting power that already belonged to them, and as an actual matter of fact, the holders of this Great Western debenture stock had no voting power and never had any voting power. It is precisely because at a meeting of the company they have neither right to attend nor power to vote that there arises any question whether they got sufficient notice, because under that same statute to which I referred, (the amalgamation statute of the two companies), it was provided that as regards	meetings
of the company an advertisement in the Canada Gazette was	sufficient
notice. If those Great Western shareholders were people entitled to attend and vote at a meeting of the company, then the whole question falls; they certainly had the necessary notice, and the counsel who suggests doubt whether they had necessary notice, suggests it precisely on the ground that, they being people who had no right to attend a meeting of the company and no power to vote at a meeting of the company, you could not interpret a notice calling a meeting of the company as being a notice to them. That is the ground of the objection. Therefore, if they be people who had any interest imaginable in the wide world to go to that meeting, then they were sufficiently notified. It is only because the view is entertained-and I think it is a perfectly correct view-that they were people who had neither right to" attend meetings of the company nor power to vote when they got there, that it is suggested that they were not covered by a notice sufficient to call a meeting of the company.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I find that in the Act of last year the preamble states that they had the right to be there and to vote. Why did we so provide if they had no such right?


Charles Joseph Doherty: The hon. member's spectacles must be a little out of order. What we said. in the preamble of the Act was:
Whereas the present capital stock of the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada consists of the following::


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Then the Great Western debenture stock is named among the others.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The preamble continues :
And whereas the present outstanding debenture stocks of the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada consisting of-

Then the stocks named include the Great Western debenture stock. Now, there is not the slightest doubt that although that stock is inserted as part of the capital stock, it is present outstanding debenture stock. There is not the slightest doubt that these people were holders of these outstanding Great Western debenture stocks and that as such they had no votes.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: We say in the preamble of the Acquisition Act that they have.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Where? Will the hon. member be kind enough to tell us where it is stated that they have votes?


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: The list given includes the five per cent Grand Trunk debenture stock and five per cent Great Western debenture stock, which, I understand, is the one we are dealing with. It provides that holders of these stocks, "hereinafter called the present debenture stocks," are entitled to certain voting powers at meetings of shareholders of the Grand Trunk Railway Company.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The whole bulk of these are entitled to certain voting powers, but when you come to analyse them you find that one among them is not entitled to any voting power.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Though we acknowledge by statute that they have.


Charles Joseph Doherty: But there is one in that list of persons who have certain voting powers who has no share in that voting power.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: We say that he has, and we cannot go back on that.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The hon. gentleman and I will have to disagree as to just what we said. We said that taking these classes all together they had certain voting powers. When we came to determine how this question was to be decided, we said that it was to be decided by the majority of the voting power. Now, you cannot find the voting power set forth in this statute; you have to go, as I have said,, to the origin, and there you find that these Great Western people have no voting power. If the hon. gentleman is right and they had a voting power, then there is no question about the sufficiency of their notice. If I am right, it is only when you view the matter from the standpoint of my suggestion that they had not voting power that any possible question arises. If I am right, then how could these people figure among the majority of the voting powers-and that 
is all that is required to Tatify? The ratification was to be not by a majority of the shareholders, but by a majority of the voting power. 80 that the question is purely a technical one, something in connection with which no injury can be done to any one.
Let me point out further-and I am almost ashamed to be piling up such unnecessary things-that no property of these people is taken from them. The hon. gentleman spoke about person and property being affected. Neither their persons nor their property is to be affected in the slightest degree by this transaction. We are acquiring the preferred and common stock; the holders of these are the proprietors whose property is affected. The Great Western debenture stockholders are affected only in this extent; that they get the Government guarantee for the interest on their debentures. They keep their property; all that comes to them from this agreement is the guarantee of the Government for their interest. Who can suggest, therefore, that they are in the remotest [degree prejudiced? What could be their complaint? Could they plead as a grievance before a court that they got a Government guarantee for their interest? 1 imagine the court saying: "What a grievance; surely you must be listened to; you must have a remedy; you must be relieved of that Government guarantee; no court can stand by and see anybody's claim made unquestionable for all time." That is the intolerable grievance that the gentlemen who were not notified, if they were not notified as they ought to have been, would have to lay before a court. So that I think our consciences may be absolutely at rest as to any possible suggestion that any interest would be prejudiced ot affected in any way by our ratifying so far as this question of notice is concerned.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: The minister's contention, I take it, is that the Bill now before the House is absolutely unnecessary.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Now, let me meet the hon. gentleman's suggestion. I have not any doubt about these things, but the distinguished lawyer from North Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie) has suggested-and it has been suggested by counsel-that there might be an extreme technical interpretation which, while not indicating that anybody suffered an injustice, would throw doubt upon the validity of that meeting.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: How could that be if there were only two shareholders in question wTho were not entitled-


Charles Joseph Doherty: Ask the member for North Cape Breton. He tells you there is serious danger; he says that the thing is illegal. In saying that I do not' speak otherwise than respectfully of his opinion; it is quite reasonable that a lawyer of his distinction should entertain that opinion. But it is clear that there is no question of any substantial injustice to any one, and ,we say we want to protect 'the people of Canada against their being attacked with possibly successful lawsuits-the hon. gentleman thinks that that might happen- at all events, against their being subjected to attacks based upon the idea which exists to a greater or lesser' extent that there may be room for question on that ground. We want simply to put 'the people of Canada in a position where they can sit down quietly and say: We have a title that is not subject to this sort of question.


Emmanuel Berchmans Devlin: If I may be allowed a further interruption. I do not mean to place myself on record as having pronounced against the contention raised by the member for North Cape Breton and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) because L have great respect for his legal opinion. I aim now listening to both sides of the question.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I quite appreciate the judicial mind with which the hon. member approaches the question. I hope that it may be premonitory of a more universal application of those judicial qualities later on.
I pass therefore from the objections that have been taken to this ratification, to the objection that has been raised-because there is only one-suggesting a divergence between the statute as passed and the agreement as it is drawn. I am passing over the commentaries of the hon. member for Queen's and Shelburne (Mr. Fielding) upon the haste with which the Government acts in connection with this particular matter. With regard to this Bill, I have no desire to go back to the past, and the hon. gentleman himself said he saw no useful purpose in doing so. I do not know what undue haste the Government has shown up to the present time in connection with this Bill. The Bill has been introduced, and of course it is desirable that it should be promptly passed. I would think, whatever may be one's opinions about the desirability of the transactions involved in the matter, that there would be unanimity in the view that we ought to get as perfect a title as possible, and I have no doubt at all that there would also be a unanimous opinion that what is to be done 'had better
be done promptly. If this transaction is to be justified it is very largely to be justified by the fact that there is a necessity for the intervention of this Government, and that it is very much in the public interest that this road should be carried on, a condition having been reached by reason of which, without some intervention from outside, the affairs of the company could not be carried on. I ask hon. gentlemen this question: How much worse off would the country be, seeing that we have decided to acquire the Grand Trunk, if, pending delay after delay which might stretch itself out, a situation developed that rendered it impossible for the company to carry on and we had to face all the consequences that are sought to be avoided by governmental intervention? Surely it is as clear as daylight that if this matter is to be done it ought to be promptly and effectively done; and that is the only ground upon which we have sought to'take what seemed the shortest as well as the most effective way of having the transaction completed. It has been complained that there is a divergence between the agreement and the Act of last year in the clause which empowers the managing committee to borrow money.


William Stevens Fielding: From the Government?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes. Power is given
to the board of management to borrow money from the Government if the Government consents. With the consent of the Government the board of management is* to have power to borrow money from the Government, and that power is invoked as being a practical introduction into the agreement of a clause which was inserted in the Bill of last year and withdrawn, authorizing the lending of money. The two things are very different. This clause in the agreement involves no obligation on the pant of the Government to lend any money at all; and, of course, not being statutory, it could not confer any power on the Government to lend money. But the purpose of that section is to determine what the functions of the board of management are to be. If hon. gentlemen will look carefully at the section they will see that it does not constitute the Board of Management the entire controlling and directing body of the corporation. The Board of Management is created for the particular purpose of insuring that the operations of the Grand Trunk railway are so carried on and adjusted as to work in with the operations of the Canadian National railways, pending the final passing of the stock. A body like that can clearly have only such powers

as are given to it by the agreement between the two parties constituting it, namely, the Government on the one hand and the company on the other. In the agreement entered into between those two parties power is conferred on the Board of Management, among other things, to borrow, with the consent of the Government, such money as the Government may lend; and there is not a tittle of obligation, as of course there could not be, on the part of this Government to lend any money. As to what may he the powers to lend money, they of course stand just wherever they would have been if that agreement had not been entered into at all. So that if the hon. gentleman will look carefully 'at the section he will perceive the error into which he has fallen in suggesting that there is an introduction into the agreement of a clause that was struck out of the statute.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: What is it there for?


Charles Joseph Doherty: The provision is there so that if it be necessary that money should be borrowed for the purposes stated it shall not be borrowed by the Board of Directors of the company, who are still in existence, but that the Board of Management shall have the power to borrow. It is to give them the power, if the Government will consent, to raise money to provide for the needs of operation.


William Stevens Fielding: Would the company not have the power to borrow money from any source without this at all?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes; but my hon. friend will see that this does not give the power to borrow to the company but to the Board of Management.


William Stevens Fielding: The Board of Management will have the company's powers.


Charles Joseph Doherty: No. The hon. gentleman will see that the Board of Management is a body which is not created to manage the entire business of the company in any sense. Perhaps we had better see just what its functions are, because-if I may say so without implying any offence-there seems to be a remarkable misapprehension as to the nature and purpose of the Board of Management.
Forthwith after the ratification of this agreement. as provided in said Act. a Committee of
Management, consisting of	shall be
formed-
Now let us see what is functions are:
-to insure the operation of the Grand Trunk system, (in so far as it is possible to do so) in harmony with the Canadian National railways, 
the two systems being treated, in the public interest, as nearly as possible as one system.
So that, until this property passes, the continued existence of the two systems is recognized, and a Board of Management is created for the purpose of affecting the harmonious working between the two. But there is no provision that the Board of Management is to have the whole control of the Grand Trunk railway.


William Stevens Fielding: Surely the road is to be managed under the powers granted to the Grand Trunk Railway Company, which would still remain in existence.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes; and the Grand Trunk Railway Company, so far as this agreement is concerned, might borrow any money it wanted. But the point that I am trying to bring home to my hon. friend is that the purpose of this section is to create in the Board of' Management a power to borrow money. The Board of Management without that would have had absolutely no power to borrow any money even though the Grand Trunk Company might have. The purpose of that was to provide that the money which could be borrowed, if the Government ever came to the position where they consented to lend, should be borrowed not by the Grand Trunk Company but by the Board of Management. The whole purpose is to empower the Board of Management, and there is clearly no room for the suggestion that the insertion of this provision in the agreement violated in any way the provisions of the Act. The hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's furthermore claims that all this might have been done at the meeting of the Grand Trunk Railway Company which he said is called for the 29th of this month. The meeting he is speaking of is a meeting of the company and it is called in the manner provided for calling a meeting of the company. If they proceed to deal with this agreement at that meeting they will be face to face with precisely the objection that is made here about notice. You have to give notice of a special meeting to deal with this specific contract.


Mr. MURPHY:: What length of notice is required?


Charles Joseph Doherty: There is no special
length of notice prescribed in last year's statute for that particular meeting.


Charles Murphy: But assuming that there is time for notice to be given?


Charles Joseph Doherty: It is a little difficult to say offhand because a distinction is made between the meeting of the company and a meeting under section 7 of the Act of last year. I have little or no doubt that there is no real distinction between a meeting under section 7 and a meeting of the company. But the suggestion of doubt turns upon it being possible that it is a different kind of meeting. If you have another meeting called under the rules of the company without any specific notice about this and not specifically calling upon the Great Western debenture holders to attend, and who are not required to be called upon, you will not rectify it in that way. If you intend to rectify it you should call something more than a meeting of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and you should call specifically these Great Western debenture holders who will not have any vote, who could not have anything to say and who would only have to sit down and watch themselves obtaining the guarantee that is to be granted. The method suggested by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's would not attain the result which we had in view.
Air. FIEL.DJNG: It would if they gave the notice. My point was that there has been abundant time to give notice and call a meet.ng.


Charles Joseph Doherty: If we had been aware that the Grand Trunk Railway were calling another meeting, but the Grand Trunk contend that it is entirely unnecessary to hold a meeting to ratify that agreement. I do not know that we have any power to compel them to hold another meeting to ratify that agreement. They say that the agreement has been ratified. In any event, why should we adopt that method, with whatever delay may be involved, when we have, without doing violence to anybody's right, this method of closing up the matter, with the additional advantage that we settle once and for all any possible technical question that may arise, because, even with the best intentions, at the next meeting some other cog may slip and we may find ourselves in the same position. The purpose of this Bill ought to meet with general approval. It is to correct these errors and the consequences of these irregularities and to do it in a way that cannot do anybody any harm.


Mr. J. J. DENIS (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, if anybody in this country had any doubt last year as to whether it would be profitable for the Government to acquire the
Grand Trunk Railway system, that doubt must have been confirmed, and the people who held the view that the policy of public ownership was a wise one to adopt must be greatly reduced in number since the railway budget was recently introduced into this House by the hon. the Minister of Railways and Canals. When the Bill for the acquisition of the Grand Trunk was introduced last year many reasons were given why the system should not be acquired by the country. One of the reasons given was that the country would have to bear year after year an enormous deficit on account of these railways. At that time no one could tell what the deficit would be on the administration of the railways by the State. We had secured the control and required the property of three great railways, but no one knew exactly what would be the outcome of their ownership and administration by the Government. This year we had a speech by the Alinister of Railways and Canals-a speech which was unique as it was the first utterance of its kind that was ever delivered in Parliament, namely, a speech embodying the railway budget. During that speech we learned that the Government lost last year $47,000,000 on the administration of its railways. If, this fact had been known to Parliament last year is it possible that a majority of members would have voted for the acquisition of the Grand Trunk? We may reasonably draw the conclusion that if these figures had been known last year in advance the majority would not have voted for the acquisition of that railway.
But we are confronted, according to the right hon. the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) and other members on the other side of the House with this proposition: There is no use crying over spilt milk; we 'are in for the acquisition of the Grand Trunk, we have to stay in and we cannot escape. I respectfully submit that we are not bound to that extent. What was the purport and effect of the Bill which we passed last year? The Bill was improperly called a Bill for the acquisition of the Grand Trunk Railway system. It should have read for the acquisition of the Grand Trunk railway ultimately, but -the Bill that was passed last year was passed simply for the purpose, first, of submitting an agreement on the part of the Government of Canada to the Grand Trunk Company; and if the Grand Trunk accepted that agreement then the Bill would give effect to the agreement, and the Grand Trunk would become the

property of this country. Consequently, there was a proposal on the part of the Government of Canada, which proposal had to be accepted regularly and validly by the shareholders of the company.
Now in what position are we placed today? The Government comes to us and says: " The shareholders of the company did not validly, properly and regularly accept the agreement which we have offered to them." It amounts to that, because the ratification of this agreement by the shareholders is either valid or it is void. If that ratification by the shareholders is valid, then the present Bill is absolutely useless, and surely the Government does not pretend that such is the case. If, on the other hand, the ratification by the shareholders is void then the Government is no longer bound by it, nor is the country bound. If the Grand Trunk did not properly, regularly and validly accept this proposal or agreement, then they rejected it. Technically they rejected the proposal, although they might pretend that they did not. The majority might pretend that they are willing to accept the proposal, but technically they rejected the agreement. Therefore, if the agreement has once been rejected we have no business to go to the rescue of the Grand Trunk shareholders. We have no business to go and help them, and say to them: "Well, your ratification was insufficient. The bargain is not yet made, the property is not bought, but we are going to help you along and we will pass a Bill in order to make that ratification valid." We may do that, Sir, if we persist in our proposal to buy the Grand Trunk. If the majority of the members of this House still want to buy the Grand Trunk, if those members are satisfied with the railway budget presented a few days ago by the Minister of Railways, if they are satisfied to take ;the responsibilities of loading upon the shoulders of the people of Canada another twenty or twenty-five millions of dollars a year through the acquisition of the Grand Trunk, then it will be right for them to vote for the present Bill and by so doing they would say to the Grand Trunk shareholders: "Your ratification of the agreement was not valid; we were not bound by your ratification and we could reject it; we could abandon the agreement submitted to you because you have refused it, at least, technically speaking, but we want to buy your property and because we do, we will go to your rescue and we will give you the means to sell your property even when you cannot do it properly, legally and validly."

But, Sir, is that the case? Is it true that the majority of the members will be satisfied to place on the shoulders of the Canadian people an added burden of twenty to twenty-five million dollars a year? If this is true then I say this Grand Trunk transaction is nothing short of a tragedy. After this country has been through a terrible war, after Canada has gone into debt to the extent of over two billions of dollars, when the Minister of Finance finds it impossible to provide the necessary means in order to avoid borrowing and borrowing, when the country is on the verge of ruin, when the majority of the members of this House do not represent the opinion of the Canadian people, I say it is nothing short of a tragedy to see the same majority staying here and carrying on, as they will for two or three years to come, and loading the nation with such a heavy burden. I can quite understand that it would not be very agreeable for certain hon. gentlemen opposite to vote down this Bill. A man always likes-it is according to human nature, it is in accordance with the pride inherent in human beings- to stand by what he has done; and no hon. gentleman would very much like to defeat this year a measure that he had helped to pass last year. But, Sir, are we going to admit that when we come to a question of this size and importance that members of the House are not high-minded, and broadminded enough, and big enough men, to rise in their places here and say: "Last year we voted in good faith for the acquisition of this road, but now that we know these railroads are going to bankrupt the country, now that it is time to stop the country drifting to ruin, we will vote down the acquisition of the Grand Trunk in the same spirit of good faith that influenced us when last year we voted for its acquisition." Sir, if I met any member of the House who would take such a stand I would raise my hat and bow to him, and I would ask his electors and the people of the country at large to accord him that deference, because such a man would be a mighty example of good citizenship to all Canada, as well as to the members of this House. May I say that if, in my own opinion, I had made a mistake in voting down this Bill last year I would be very glad to get up here and say: "I made a mistake; and I would not feel ashamed. I have gleaned new light as to the facts within the past year or within the past few months and now that I see more clearly into this matter I am ready to reverse my judgment." Sir, I believe in the integrity, and in the good faith of the members of this

House. I believe that each and every one of them is here to serve his country faithfully. If such be the case we have a right to appeal to them again, to speak to them as one would address a jury, and to say: " Will you not consider the condition into which this country has been thrown, first by the war, and secondly by this nefarious scheme of securing all, or practically all, of the railroads in Canada?" We have a right ' to come to them and ask them to fairly and squarely consider this question once more; and if it be true that the ratification by the shareholders of the Grand Trunk cannot be valid until it has been validated by a vote of this House, in my opinion it would be only wise, and right and proper for us to say to those shareholders: " Since you did not think fit to give proper and valid ratification to the scheme which we had placed before you, we will drop it." That would be simply a business proposition. No shame to any hon. member would be involved by such a procedure, and furthermore the Grand Trunk Company would not lose anything by it. Is this a question of pride, or is it a question of business? The Grand Trunk Company would not lose a dollar if Parliament should not pass the present Bill and should not help the Grand Trunk shareholders to ratify the agreement which they did not themselves ratify validly.
I do not intend to discuss at length the merits of the Bill as submitted to the House. The Minister of Justice very clearly, and very forcefully, gave his side of the case. To me the whole thing can be stated in two words: Either the transaction is valid or it is not valid. No one can contend that the transaction is valid when the Government themselves say that it is not valid, that there are serious doubts as to the regularity of the meeting of the Grand Trunk shareholders, and that the transaction must be validated by this House.
It may be assumed that if the action of the Grand Trunk meeting was not valid, Parliament is not bound by the agreement, and all we have to do is to withdraw from it and say to the Grand Trunk: "Keep your property; we have made you an offer-a very profitable offer-an offer that was not in the interests of this country." I am willing to admit even that the offer was made with that intention, but the fact is that this agreement will never be of benefit to our people. Therefore we have a right to say to the Grand Trunk shareholders: " We, as the representatives of the people of this country, submitted to you this agreement; you did not think' fit to accept it regularly and validly; consequently we are not bound by
its terms, and we now withdraw, you keeping your property and we keeping our $500,000,000 that we were willing to pay you for this property which is not worth half that money to the Dominion."
Mr. THOMAS W. CALDWELL (Victoria and Garleton, N.B.):	Mr. Speaker, I was
very much interested in the explanation of the right hon. the Minister of Justice of the technical difficulty into which this railroad matter has apparently drifted, but I was somewhat disappointed to find that he was hardly sure whether the matter had really drifted into this difficulty or not. The first part of his speech I did not hear distinctly, but it seemed to me that
5 p.m. he was contending that the holders of the debenture stock of the Grand Trunk railway, who, as I understood, were not at the meeting, would not have had any right to vote if they had been there. Therefore there could be no technical difficulty. But later he seemed to come around to the view that there was a technical difficulty. However, I do not want to discuss the technical part of this trouble at all, although I would rather have heard the minister quite distinctly so that I might be a little more clear on that point.
I was more interested perhaps in the criticism by the hon. members for North Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie) and Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) of the whole Grand Trunk scheme, and they reminded me somewhat of the old legend about the quarrel between the pot and the kettle, which were not made of aluminum but wer i of the old black iron variety, and probably they were not very clean either. At any rate, the legend states that one called the other black. I would just like to take the House back to the time when the Grand Trunk Pacific was built, because I do not consider the matter of government acquisition of railroads is so important as the manner in which they are acquired. I would like to point out that we have acquired railroads before, perhaps in a worse manner than we are now proposing to acquire the Grand Trunk railroad, although I think that would be needless because the Grand Trunk proposition to my mind is certainly bad enough, and I think the people of Canada also entertain the same view. As my authority I would quote the report prepared on the Grand Trunk Railway system as well as other transportation systems, by a Royal Commission composed of the present Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) and Mr. W. M. Acworth. In part two of that report, referring to the

building of the National Transcontinental, I find the following:
The Grand Trunk scheme, first put forward in 1903 under two Acts of Parliament, both dated October 24, 1903, was for a main line right across the continent from Moncton to Prince Rupert. The portion of the line east of Winnipeg was to be built by the Government and leased to the Grand Trunk Pacific Company for fifty years certain, with a possibility of renewal. The portion west of Winnipeg was to be built by the Grand Trunk Pacific Company, with large government assistance. The Grand Trunk Pacific was to build any necessary branches of the system both east and west, and was to operate the whole. The Grand Trunk was to hold, and in fact always has held, the entire share capital of the Grand Trunk Pacific. And the Grand Trunk has had full control of the undertaking throughout.
In fairness to the Grand Trunk it should be observed that the responsibility for the construction of the line from Moncton to Winnipeg, now known as the National Transcontinental, does not primarily rest on them. The proposal of the company, as originally formulated and submitted to the Government, was for a line from the Pacific through Winnipeg as far as North Bay. Government action was responsible for the line being carried eastward all the way to Quebec. And the further prolongation from Quebec to Moncton was added during the passage of the Bill through Parliament.
But though the Grand Trunk did not originate the National Transcontinental, it accepted full liability for it. The agreement between the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Dominion Government provided as follows: " In order to insure, for the protection of the company as lessees of the Eastern Division of the said railway, the economical construction thereof in such a manner that it can be operated to the best advantage, it is hereby agreed that the specifications for the construction of the Eastern Division shall be submitted to and approved of by the company before the commencement of the work, and the said work shall be done according to the said specifications, and shall be subject to the joint supervision, inspection and acceptance of the chief engineer of the company."
Upon this provision the Grand Trunk Pacific Company, in an official publication, " The Grand Trunk Pacific; Canada's National Transcontinental Railway; 10th edition, January. 1912," comments as follows :-
" Since the rental payable by the company to the Government for the use of the Eastern Division is a percentage on the cost of construction, it will be observed that it is a matter of great importance to the company that this item ' cost of construction ' shall be determined on the most economical basis consistent with a well-built railway, in which respect the foregoing provision contained in the agreement fully protects the company."
The company, then, appreciated that " cost of construction " was to it a matter of great importance, and considered that It was lully protected by the terms of the agreement. But as, in spite of the right of the company to approve specifications and the right of the company's chief engineer to supervise and '.nfpcct the work,-
Now, thi3 is what I wish particularly to direct the attention of hon. members to:

-the cost of construction of the National Transcontinental, which had been estimated at $61,415,000, was permitted to reach $159,881,197,-
being $98,466,197 more than the estimate.


Mr. SMITH:: Who made the original
estimate?


Mr. CALDWELL:: I do not know. I
imagine the estimate was made bv engineers who were presumed to be competent to make it. If they were not competent, it was certainly the fault of the Government to employ them, and I would like some of the members of the old Liberal party-which I supported at that time-to tell us where this $98,000,000 went to over and above the estimated cost of this construction.
Now I want to show the House how we acquired that railroad. The report continues :
-the company objected to carrying out their bargain. And the Government, by accepting the company's refusal and commencing to work the line themselves, have in effect released the company unconditionally. The National Transcontinental is now part of the Government railways.
I think I might be excused, Mr. Speaker, for saying that the criticism of the hon. members I referred to reminded me of that old legend of the pot and the kettle, because I do not think that even they will contend that we acquired that railway in the right manner or at a cost commensurate with the value of the property.
I also wish to quote further from this report, because I do not think either of the old parties in this House has any monopoly of extravagant railroad building or of mismanagement of those railroads afterwards, or even of guaranteeing bonds of private railway companies without getting adequate assurance that no loss would result from such guarantees. I propose to quote from page 19 of the Drayton-Acworth report something in this connection. It is there stated:
Not counting the loss of interest for many years upon the investment In roads operated by the Government, It appears that for the eight systems, in which the public is most interested, the people of Canada, through their governments, have provided or guaranteed the payment of sums totalling $968,451,737. This works out at over $30,000 per mile of road. But even this is not all. In addition, they have granted great areas of land as yet unsold and unpledged. They have undertaken the construction of other lines whose cost will be an important addition to this large outlay. Further, in the case of some of the companies included above, to which they have given or lent large sums of money to meet pressing needs, unlike private lenders, who would naturally have demanded a security charged in front of all pre-



IS, 1920

[Stage Direction]
vious investment, they have voluntarily accepted a charge ranking after the bulk of the private capital already put into the undertaking.
Or in other words, they advanced the major portion of the cost of building these roads, and they have been satisfied to take a second mortgage. I think no sound business man would do such a thing in his own business, and I do not think any Government is justified in doing such a thing for the people it represents.
As regards the Grand Trunk Pacific system, which is under discussion at the present time and which this discussion affects as to the value that we shall get for the money that we are proposing to put into it, the Grand Trunk Pacific system, including the branch lines, has obtained from the people already, in cash or guarantees of bonds, $127,939,832 out of $197,129,391, which is given as the total cost of the property. You will notice, Mr. Speaker, that this is not given as the value of the undertaking, but as the total cost of its construction. In view of the figures I quoted a few minutes ago as to the cost of construction of the National Transcontinental, if these other railways were constructed in the same extravagant manner, they are certainly not worth what they cost, and I think this report further on will justify that view. I should like to quote from the same report on page 20 something of what this commission thought this road was worth:
The Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk Pacific belong to the third period.
The commission were giving different periods of railway construction in Canada.
Though the outward form of these two undertakings is that of a private company, substantially, they both rest on the responsibility of the governments, national and provincial. Their common stocks, which carry with them control of the respective properties, represent no practical cash investment, and both companies have failed " to make good." They are kept going at present only through large advances of public money.
That will show something of what this commission thought of these two railway systems as going and money-making concerns. On page 32, the commission's conclusions are given as follows:
Our inquiry has fully satisfied us that the Grand Trunk management was content at the time with the arrangement made; that it deliberately took its business chances, and proceeded with the undertaking. On the evidence there is nothing whatever to justify any charge of lack of fairness or good faith on the part of the Government in its dealings with the company. We have no hesitation in saying that, neither legally nor morally, have the pro-84
moters or	shareholders of	the Grand
Trunk Pacific Company any basis for a claim that the country shall make good the Grand Trunk's mistaken investment in the Grand Trunk Pacific. Any aid given to them must be looked upon not as a matter of obligation, but as spontaneous bounty.
That was the opinion of (these men who, I believe, were qualified to judge after having fully investigated the circumstances of the case. Of this Grand Trunk Pacific common stock, there is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $120,000,000 which the members of this commission say has no practical cash value. That is part of the stock which we are taking over, and we are leaving to arbitration to decide what it is worth. I do not think the Government needs much further information as to what this common stock is worth, and I do not think I would, if I were buying it personally. Further on, in this Teport, at page 26, is the Grand Trunk Railway Company's proposal and also what this commission thought of that:
'The Grand Trunk Company have, in the letter of their president, addressed to the Prime Minister, and dated December 10, 1915, officially acknowledged that they cannot fulfil their obligations in reference to the Grand Trunk Pacific. The Grand Trunk Company have already obtained a tacit release from their contract in reference to the Transcontinental half of the original Grand Trunk Pacific undertaking. They have now, by their chairman's letter, put it on record that they are " at the end of their tether." They say that it is " quite impossible for them to meet the extra liabilities arising from the Grand Trunk Pacific Company." They propose to retire altogether from the concern; that in return for their handing over to the Government the $25,000,000 common stock of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway, which is in their possession, but for which they only paid a nominal amount of actual cash, the Government shall not only relieve them of all liability for the interest on the securities of the Grand Trunk Pacific and subsidiary companies, and for any deficiencies of operating expenses of the Grand Trunk Pacific system, but shall " repay the Grand Trunk Railway Company any money advanced to the Grand Trunk Pacific or its Branch Lines and Development Company and other subsidiary companies."
This is what the commission thought of that proposal:
We cannot think that this is a reasonable proposition, or one that we could advise the Government to accept. What would be thought if one partner in a business were to say to the other: "We entered jointly on an enterprise which we thought would be profitable. It has turned out the reverse. I propose that you settle with the creditors, pay out to me the whole of the capital I put in, and let me retire. Provided I go free. I am content that you make what you can of the business." We think the Grand Trunk Company cannot thus escape the consequences of its own action. We quite agree that the Grand Trunk Company cannot meet
[Stage Direction]


its Grand Trunk Pacific liabilities. But, if the Government is to relieve the Grand Trunk Company of liabilities which it voluntarily incurred, but which it now finds it impossible to meet, it is for the Government, not for the company, to fix the terms.
I imagine this is the road, the acquisition of which the Minister of Railways (Mr. J. I). Reid) had in mind the other day when he said that he believed the day was not far distant when the Government railways would be able to pay operating expenses and take care of fixed charges as well. I think the expression he used was that he could almost see ahead where he was going to turn the corner. There is an old saying that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread." Of course, I do not wish to put the Minister of Railways in that class at all, because I do not believe he is in that class, but I do want to warn him not to turn that corner at too high a rate of speed, especially if he is heading in the same direction as he has been doing in connection with the Canadian Government railways for the last two or three years at least. I am afraid he might run into something; he might even meet himself coming back. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I do not think it is the matter of acquiring railways that is so important; the important matter is how you acquire them and if you are getting value for the money you put into the undertaking. What I object to is the limit which the Government has set on the amount the arbitrators shall find as compensation to the shareholders or whoever we are getting this white elephant from. The Government sets a limit that the arbitrators shall not go above a limit which will amount to $64,666,666.66. I could hardly understand all the sixes. If they had been sevens, I might have understood them because seven is supposed to be a lucky number. But they say that the fixing of this limit has nothing whatever to do with the determining of the award. I quote from the agreement:	'
The fixing of this limit shall not be taken by the arbitrators as an admission or indication that the value to be determined is the amount so fixed or any other amount.
In the case of the Canadian Northern I believe that the limit of the valuation to be arrived at by the Board of Arbitrators was $10,000,000; yet the award was $10,800,000, in round figures. Have we any reason to believe that the same will not happen in this case? In view of the result of the investigation made into the railway situation by a person of such eminent ability as our present Finance Minister (Sir Henry Dray-

ton)-I do not know so well the other member of that commission, but I have every reason to believe that he was a man of considerable ability-I cannot reconcile my conscience to approving the acquirement of this road on the terms stated.
The Minister of Justice told us this afternoon that this agreement was arrived at during a previous session of Parliament and that all we were asked to do now was to ratify that agreement. I was in the House at that time but I was not permitted to take part in the discussion; I was permitted only to sit in the gallery. There also are other members of the House who are here now but who were not here at that time. Had there been a sufficient number of by-elections since that time, there would be enough members here at the present time to now prevent the acquirement of the Grand Trunk on the terms proposed. My reason for discussing the matter at this time is that I did not have an opportunity to discuss it when the matter was before the House last fall, nor an opportunity to vote on it, therefore I did not feel like letting this occasion pass without putting my views on record in regard to the whole matter of the acquisition of this road as well as the building of the Transcontinental.
Mr. FRANK CAHILL (Pontiac):: It may" be interesting to the hon. member (Mr. Caldwell) to hear a quotation from the London Times in which some remarks made by Sir Alfred Smithers are published with regard to what the earnings of the Grand Trunk Railway system would have been if a sufficient or reasonable increase in freight rates was allowed. The report says:
But it may be urged on behalf of the Government that I have taken no account of our Grand Trunk Pacific liabilities; well, for reasons which I have often explained, X do not think it is fair or right we should have those liabilities forced upon us. i will say something on that in a moment, but the fact is, even if those liabilities had been enforced, we should with the requisite increase of freight rates have earned sufficient in 1916, 1917, 1918 and 1919 to have taken care of our Grand Trunk Pacific liabilities.
The hon. member is apparently misinformed, as he would have every cause to be from the statements made in the public press and the assertions of members of the Government, with regard to the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific and the National Transcontinental. His contention that the cost of the road was estimated at $61,000,000 is quite correct. The road was being built through what was practically a

wilderness. It was opening up new territory at a time when Canada was most prosperous and when the prices of everything were going up. I may also point out to the hon. member that the National Transcontinental was built out of the revenues of the country, not out of borrowings as we are proposing to do in this case.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Frank S. Cahill: That is a fact which cannot be disputed. It is absolutely true and every member opposite knows that it is true.


Mr. OOCKSHUTT:: Not at all.


Frank S. Cahill: The road was being built out of the revenues of the day. But when the then Government went out of power they left so much money that my hon. friends who took office did not know what to do with it. But since the present Government spent that money they never have had a cent; they were not able to accumulate any more.
There was an agreement with the Grand Trunk Railway Company of that day to operate the Transcontinental and the Grand Trunk Pacific. The cost of the road was a matter of arrangement between the Government and the Grand Trunk Railway Company, a company that was well financed at that time, in good condition and having sufficient backing to fulfil its obligation to the Government of Canada. It was not a lame duck like the Canadian Northern; it was well able to operate the National Transcontinental and the Grand Trunk Pacific. Speaking to his directors not two months ago Mr. Smithers contended that with a fair increase in rates the Grand Trunk would still be able to take care of the obligations under the agreement to which I have referred. The present Government did not insist upon the Grand Trunk living up to their agreement; they simply took over the road and let it go at that, and they have since been consistently working to kill the road. I pointed out here a few days ago that 6.500 carloads of material in one section of the Transcontinental had not been moved because there were no cars. The minister said that these shipments were destined for American points. That is not the case, Mr. Speaker. I have a letter from one of the best informed men in the district, Mr. Authier, a land agent who travels up and down the country and knows the conditions well and he tells me that Beven-ty-five per cent of the cars of wood and lumber to be shipped from the points along that territory are for Canadian points, 84*
largely in Ontario, and not for American points. But it has been the studied policy of the Government to condemn in every way the building of the National Transcontinental and to make its operation a failure if possible.
The minister pointed out in his statement that the Transcontinental was losing only $2,750,000. If the same settlement was permitted along the Transcontinental west of Cochrane that is taking place on the Transcontinental east of Cochrane in the province of Quebec, the Transcontinental would pay its way to-day, but owing to the policy of the Ontario Department of Colonization the country is a wilderness from Quebec to Cochrane. The Government should see to it that proper settlers are allowed to settle in that territory and thus develop traffic for the road.
I am not here to defend the late Liberal administration for their railway policy, but I will say that this Government have spent more money on railways in the last two years and got less for it than the Liberal administration spent during the whole fifteen years they were in power. That is a fact that cannot be denied. The Government have spent over $200,000,000 during the last two years and they have yet a deficit of $47,000,000 to meet. At a time when the country was prosperous, when we had good administration of the country's affairs and when the building of railways went hand in hand with the promotion of immigration and colonization, the Liberal administration were justified in believing that they might open up new territory. But unfortunately for the people of Canada my hon. friends opposite came into power and began to tear down. They were too prosperous; they had too much money. They were inexperienced in, handling the affairs of the country, and they have since shown no inclination to learn; at least they have shown no inclination to save the people's money.
When the Liberal administration were in power they insisted that the Canadian Northern should not build to the Coast through the Rockies. There was a Conservative administration in power in British Columbia and they guaranteed the bonds. It is true that there was a duplication of trackage between the Great Lakes and the East, but a great part of that country is a splendid country if properly developed under a policy of putting people on the land instead of being retarded under a protectionist policy that is driving the peop.le
to the cities. If you get the popular


Andrew Ross McMaster: They will not open
those that should be opened.


Frank S. Cahill: No; and they would not attempt to go to the country on the question of the acquisition of the Grand Trunk. I think they would be very chary about testing public opinion on this or any other *question in which the people are interested. I am positive, and I am sure the *country is with me in this, that public ownership of railways in Canada cannot possibly be a success while the McKenzie and Mann crowd are handling affairs. The people of the country are not in favour of taking over the Grand Trunk to be handed over to McKenzie and Mann for their management, and I say that the Government does not represent the wishes of the Canadian people in regard to this matter. As pointed out by my hon. friend from Joliette, the agreement was not lived up to by tne Grand Trunk people, and of this fact I do not think there can be any doubt at all. As a matter of fact no one is affected except the Government, the Mckj*r. UClIll.]
Kenzie and Mann interests, and some of the other interests that are making money out of the Grand Trunk stocks. They are the only people who are interested in this transaction and are anxious to have it consummated. The Canadian people would not suffer by a delay, and, as regards the shareholders of the Grand Trunk, I should like to read a remarkable resolution passed at the meeting, as reported in the London Times. This resolution will reflect the feeling of the shareholders:
Mr. Grant Hooper said that the resolution proposed by the chairman having now been carried, he wished to submit the following resolution : " That this meeting, though accepting the agreement imposed upon the company by the Government, protests against the treatment to which the company has been subjected in being refused permission adequately to increase rates, and in the limitation of the amount of uic arbitration award."
Mr. Ince seconded this, and it was carried unanimously.
The only resolutions that were carried unanimously at the meeting of the shareholders were those opposed to the acquisition of the railway by this Government. It is quite evident '.that there was strong opposition on the part of the shareholders, and Mr. Smithers stated that the Government was forcing them to accept the bargain. As they could do nothing else under the circumstances they decided that they would have to accept it, but they immediately began to pass resolutions condemning the attitude of the Canadian Government, and declared that, under fair conditions, they could earn dividends and pay their liabilities towards the Grand Trunk Pacific. When we get into committee-which I trust we shall not-I purpose to ask the Minister of Railways how much additional deficit he will expect to have next year over and above the deficit of this year. He told us that there was a deficit of $47,000,000 on the roads that were being operated, and I .shall be anxious to know how much additional deficit the Grand Trunk will add to our present heavy obligations. *Now, if the people of Canada do not want the road-and I have no doubt that they do not-I think that the Government, instead of asking Parliament to jam this legislation through, ratifying an agreement about which we know nothing, should go back to the Grand Trunk shareholders and let them accept or refuse it as they choose. There is nothing to be lost by the people of Canada. Last year, it is true, there were a number of people who seemed to think that the acquisition of the Grand Trunk was going to help the National rail-

ways, and that there was going to be some sort of capable management instituted. The majority of the people, however, I regret to say, have lost all confidence in my hon. friend the Minister of Railways (Hon. Mr. Reid), and do not believe that he will do anything but what he is doing to-day,-virtually maintaining McKenzie and Mann in control of the treasury of Canada. These interests are enabled to tap the public treasury, by the railway policy of the present administration, and by this transaction they are going to be given further access to the pockets of the people, who will get no benefit whatever in return for the public moneys that will be spent. There is another question to which I shall expect an answer when we are in committee. The Times says:
The resolution was then put to the meeting and carried by an overwhelming majority, only six hands being held up against it.
I do not understand how a vote of that nature could be taken by a show of hands, because there would be no way of ascertaining what stocks were being voted on in that way. The report goes on to say:
The chairman appealed to the dissentients to give him a unanimous vote, but they still declined to vote for the resolution.
The solicitor (Mr. Profit) said that the resolution was carried, but they required to know, for the purpose of the records in Canada, the amount of stock represented by the dissentient votes. The chairman observed that there was an overwhelming majority in the room, and also in the proxies, in favour of the resolution, and all that was desired now was to satisfy a technical point.
I suppose that that is what we are trying to do now.
Sir Charles Russell was present, as representing the Canadian Government, and he had to satisfy himself that the gentlemen who dissented were in a minority. There was no doubt about it, but still they must have it in black and white. It would therefore be a convenience if the half-dozen members who voted against the resolution would hand in their names so that their holdings might be ascertained.
I do not see anything in the correspondence laid on the Table yesterday as to the amount of the votes represented in the dissentients. But the point is that we are asked to ratify an agreement which the people of Canada do not want, and against which I desire to go on record as being absolutely opposed. I protest against the whole transaction as strenuously as I can, because I believe it to be a bad bargain, a bargain that is not in any sense in the interests of the Canadian people.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the second time.
The House went into committee on the Bill, Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
On section 1-alteration in schedule to agreement:
James Alexander Robb: We understood from the
statement made by the minister last year that as soon as the Act was passed a coms-mittee of management was to be appointedl That committee of management was to work together in co-ordinating the different railways and bringing about co-operation between them. There is a story among railway men and shippers-it is not idle street*: rumour-that the minister is just now trying to force out Mr. W. P. Hinton as Vice-President and General Manager of the Grand Trunk Pacific in order to replace him by Mr. Warren, Manager of the Canadian Northern. I think it is due to the country that the minister should make a statement in that regard.


John Dowsley Reid: As I understand the.
statement put by the hon. member (Mr, Robb) it is that the committee of management will be formed after the Act has been passed, that the Government are trying to prevent Mr. Hinton from being a member of this committee and that Mr. Warren will be appointed a member of the committee in his place. Do I understand that to be the question of the hon. gentleman?


James Alexander Robb: No. The committee would
naturally have the management of the road and my hon. friend would be allowed to direct the policy of the road. The statement now is that, anticipating what the committee may do, the minister is trying to put Mr. Hinton out of the position which he occupies and to replace him by Mr. Warren.


John Dowsley Reid: I do not know where
the statement originated but it could only have originated through Mr. Hinton himself or Mr. Kelley, President of the- Grand Trunk. I am not trying to force out anybody but I am exceedingly anxious that the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian National shall be joined together and shall be operated together at as early a moment as possible. If we continue operating the Grand Trunk Pacific separately from the Canadian National we will have a loss probably equal to what we have this year unless there is a change of rates or we have a larger crop or something of that kind which may affect the result. If we can put these two railways together there will be a great saving. When we get this Bill through and get these two railways together it will be for the management of the Canadian National railways to say whether they are

going to continue the operation of the two Railways in the way they are being carried on now. Mr. Warren is general manager of eight or nine thousand miles of railways west of the Great Lakes and Mr. Hinton is general manager of the Grand Trunk Pa-* cific. You cannot possibly economize in any way and allow the present system oi management to continue. I did say to Mr. Hinton and Mr. Kelley that just as soon [DOT] as -I -can be relieved of the responsibility oi carrying on the management of the Grand Trunk Pacific I will have it transferred to the Canadian National railways and allow them to continue the operation. Would the hon. gentleman, if he were in my position, wish to continue the whole staff and have two managers for one railway? Either one manager or the other would have to sever his connection with these railways. My opinion is that Mr. Warren, who has charge of the Canadian National lines, who has always been an operating man and who is considered by hon. members who know him to be one of the ablest of the younger operators in Canada, would be expected to be the man who would take charge of the operation of these united railways. I will be very sorry if Mr. Hinton has to retire from his position but if the services of Mr. Hinton or any other man of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway have to be dispensed with I hope we shall be in a position to see that Mr. Hinton and any other man who is able to continue in the service shall be tatken care *of by the Grand Trunk Railway system. Could I do more? I think that is fair. When we get this agreement through and when we are amalgamating these two railways and trying to economize, if it is necessary that men must sever their connection with the road, the fault is not mine. It must fall upon the management of the consolidated railways and not upon me. I really feel that it is in the interest of the country to try and get the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian National railways together at the earliest possible moment and economize in every way. I have been told by the management of the Canadian National railways that if you can put them together you can save at least $500,000 per annum and perhaps a very much larger amount.


James Alexander Robb: There is no person questioning the efficiency of Mr. Warren but the statement we want to bring out from the minister is one as to who is running this road. Is it the committee or is it the minister? The minister has given the reply himself; he says he proposes putting Mr. 
Warren, an old Canadian Northern Railway man, into the position to replace Mr. Hinton. The minister has given evidence that the only person who is going to manage the road is the Minister of Railways and Canals.


Mr. JACOBS:: In regard to the question which the minister has raised about efficiency in the Canadian railways I would like to know if he is aware of the fact that in so far as cars "are concerned, the whole system has broken down in the asbestos districts of the eastern townships. The car shortage is so-


The CHAIRMAN:: I must call my hon.
friend to order. The car shortage in the Eastern Townships is certainly not relevant to the clause now before the committee for the purpose of amending the schedule of the Grand Trunk Railway Act.


Samuel William Jacobs: Mr. Chairman, let me say that it has as much to do with the section under consideration as the address which has just been made by the minister.


Georges Henri Boivin: The address just made by the minister was a reply to a question asked by the hon. member for Huntingdon (Mr. Robb). The rule is very clear, that all discussions in Committee of the Whole must be strictly relevant to the clause under consideration. If the committee gives its unanimous consent, the hon. gentleman may proceed with his remarks. Without such unanimous consent the hon. gentleman may not proceed. Is it the unanimous consent of the committee that the hon. gentleman be allowed to proceed?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Georges Henri Boivin: Without the unanimous consent of the committee I must apply the rule.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I am sure the committee will give the unanimous consent.


Samuel William Jacobs: Am I to understand, Mr. Chairman, by your ruling that the remarks made by the minister were in order and that my remarks were not?


An hon. MEMBER:: Order.


Georges Henri Boivin: I must point out to
the hon. member that a ruling from the Chair cannot be questioned.


Samuel William Jacobs: It is not being questioned or discussed.


Georges Henri Boivin: In answer to the hon. gentleman's question I may say this:	If
the answering of one question, not strictly

in conformity with the rule, should be taken as a precedent and be acted upon by other hon. members, the business of the committee could not possibly be advanced. I am very sorry indeed that it should fall to the lot of the hon. member to be the first to be called to order. However, the line must be drawn somewhere, and the Chairman felt compelled to rule as he did.


Samuel William Jacobs: All I can say is that the
minister made a slip and I am called to order.


Georges Henri Boivin: The only slip made by the minister was an answer to a question asked by an hon. member of the Opposition which should not have been allowed by the Chair.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I ask the minister if he is aware of the meeting of Grand Trunk shareholders to be held in London on the 29th of this month, to which the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) has alluded?


John Dowsley Reid: The notice read here to-day was the first intimation I had of that meeting.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In view of the fact that the minister is now aware of the meeting does he consider it necessary to proceed with this legislation? Would it not be possible for the shareholders to agree to the changes which are desired, if they are willing to do so?


Mr.  J. D. RETD@: I do not think the leader of the Opposition was in the Chamber when the Minister of Justice explained that it would not be possible to have this agreement disposed of at that particular meeting. In other words, a special meeting would have to be called, and the shareholders would have to be notified that it was a special meeting called for that particular purpose.


William Stevens Fielding: If there was time to call a general meeting, there was also time to call a special meeting.


John Dowsley Reid: I was merely answering a question put to me by the leader of the Opposition.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Before this clause
passes I think it would be useful to place before the committee the manner in which the more than generous offer made by the Canadian Government to the Grand Trunk shareholders was received by those shareholders. From time to time I have seen
extracts in our papers which gave me some inkling of the way these gentlemen were talking. Last year I protested with all my force against the adoption of this relation with the Grand Trunk. I thought that the shareholders, especially some classes of them, were being treated far too kindly. My own feeling was that if the Grand Trunk was unable to meet its obligations, whether those obligations were connected with the old parent company or the Grand Trunk Pacific, they should be allowed to go into liquidation, that a receiver should be appointed, and then if it was wise for the Government to buy from the receiver that course should be adopted. The Government, as an objection to this proposal, said it would hurt our credit in the Old Country. Under the circumstances let me read what the shareholders of the Grand Trunk have been saying in the Old Country to see whether, by the improvident bargain we made last year, we have in any way increased Canadian prestige overseas.


Georges Henri Boivin: Before the hon. gentleman proceeds to do so I would ask him to connect his remarks with the clause under consideration? I think that they would be quite in order under clause 2, but certainly not under this clause.


Andrew Ross McMaster: The man whose remarks I am going to quote is a shareholder in this company in connection with which we are asked to correct this agreement. It seems to roe that I am in order, but if you prefer that I should delay my remarks until the next clause is reached, I only live while I am in the House to obey the ruling of the Speaker, or the chairman of the committee.


Georges Henri Boivin: The hon. gentleman's remarks would be more in order on clause 2. Shall clause 1 carry?
Mr. McKENZIE,: Can the minister give us any idea as to the length and financial standing of the new railroads that we are taking in and dealing with? Are they large or small railways, and are they earning dividends and conducting a good business? Are they to be tributary to the rest of the system, and what generally is the standing of these properties that we are taking power to acquire?


John Dowsley Reid: The Vermont and Province Railroad Company, the stock of which we now own one hundred per cent, is, I think, 3.16 miles in length. The other line, the Pembroke Southern railway, was mentioned in the schedule of the Act last

year, only it was stated that it was controlled by lease, whereas we actually control the stock ownership. It is twenty-one miles in length and that really does not affect the question at all.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Is it a branch line, and if so, of which road?


John Dowsley Reid: The Pembroke Southern is a branch of the Canada Atlantic railway. When the Grand Trunk took over the Canada Atlantic system this was a branch line, some twenty-one miles in length. The other line is a branch of the Central Vermont, a small spur line.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Is the Pembroke
Southern conducted as a separate entity, or is it operated as a branch of the Canada Atlantic?


John Dowsley Reid: It is a subsidiary company and operated as part of the Canada Atlantic system of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. It runs from Pembroke to Golden Lake. ,


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: As a matter of management and of ascertaining its earning capacity and maintenance cost, is it treated as a separate entity or as an integral part of the main system?


John Dowsley Reid: I do not suppose there would be any difficulty in getting an approximate estimate of the earnings and expenses of this particular branch line, but this being a short line operated as part of the whole system it does not strike me that the information asked for is of any serious importance when we are merely correcting an error.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: The only reason I am asking for the information is that when* we reach schedule 1 specifying the seventy-four lines to be taken over, we may require full details.


Frank S. Cahill: Could the minister tell
us who is president of this three miles of railway we are having so much difficulty in taking over?


John Dowsley Reid: Mr. Kelley is the president. The president of the Grand Trunk is also appointed president of these subsidiary companies.


James Alexander Robb: Is the minister sure of that information? Is not Mr. Smith, of St. Albans, the president?


John Dowsley Reid: We are talking of the Pembroke line.


Frank S. Cahill: No, I was speaking of the Vermont and Province line.	[DOT]*


John Dowsley Reid: I saw it stated in the press that this Vermont line had its own officials, but I could not say at the moment. If the hon. member thinks it is of sufficient importance, I can telephone for the information between now and eight o'clock.


Samuel William Jacobs: Will the hon. gentleman
tell us whether the cars of the Vermont and Province line are owned by the Grand Tiunk?


John Dowsley Reid: All these branch lines are owned and controlled by the Grand Trunk, and this ownership of control would of course cover the equipment.


Samuel William Jacobs: Would the Grand Trunk officials have any power to order these cars into the country?


John Dowsley Reid: Any cars on their own road they would bring into the country; they are operating in that way.
At six o'clock the House resumed and then took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at Eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILLS.


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 25, respecting the Pacific Coast Fire Insurance Company.-Mr. Stevens.
Bill No. 26, respecting the Pacific Marine Insurance Company.-Mr. Stevens.
Bill No. 4, to incorporate Armor Life Assurance Company.-Mr. Griesbach.
Bill No. 33, to incorporate International Loan Company.-Mr. Blake.
Bill No. 5, respecting the Burrard Inlet Tunnel and Bridge Company.-Mr. Crowe.
Bill No. 34, respecting the Montreal and Southern Counties Railway Company.- Mr. Archambault.
Bill No. 41, respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.-Mr. Nesbitt.
Bill No. 42, respecting the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway Company.-Mr. Clements.
Bill No. 43, respecting the Kettle Valley Railway Company.-Mr. Green.
Bill No. 44, respecting Montreal, Joliette and Transcontinental Junction Railway Company.-Mr. Denis.


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration in committee of Bill No. 54-Hon. J. D. Reid-to confirm the agreement dated eighth day of March, 1920, between iHis Majesty the King and the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada for the acquisition by His Majesty of the capital stock of the said Grand Trunk Railway Company, except the four per cent guaranteed stock. Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
Georges Henri Boivin: When the committee rose at six o'clock clause 1 had been read and was being considered.


Frank S. Cahill: The minister was to get some information about the officers and directors of the Vermont and Province Line.


John Dowsley Reid: One of my officials has been trying to get the president of the Grand Trunk Railway Company by telephone, but he has not been able to locate him. In a few minutes I expect to be able to give the hon. member the information that he asks for.


Frank S. Cahill: What does the minister
propose that we do in the meantime?


John Dowsley Reid: Go on with the clause.


Frank S. Cahill: How can we go on without this information?


John Dowsley Reid: What difference does it make who the president of the company is?-I think that was my hon. friend's question.


Frank S. Cahill: If the minister cannot say who the president is, he is probably unable to say what the capital stock of the company is and what the earnings have been.


John Dowsley Reid: I have not the earnings of the Pembroke Southern railway; it would take some time to get them. But I cannot see that that really makes any difference so far as the confirming of the agreement is concerned, because that matter will be taken into consideration by the arbitrators in determining their award.


Charles Murphy: The minister is under a misapprehension; the line that my hon. friend (Mr. Cahill) was inquiring about was the Vermont and Province Line, not the one in Ontario.


John Dowsley Reid: The Vermont and Province Line is a subsidiary company of the Central Vermont Railway. Mr. Howard G. Kelley is the chairman of the board. Governor Smith is president; W. H. Biggar, Frank Scott and J. D. Dalrymple, vicepresidents; J. W. Wardlaw, general manager.


Frank S. Cahill: Will the minister give us the earnings of the company?


John Dowsley Reid: This is only a three-mile line. I am informed that the accounts are not kept separate from the rest of the system.
' Mr. CAHILL: It may be only a siding or small branch?


John Dowsley Reid: Probably something of that kind.


Frank S. Cahill: Is it necessary to go
through all this procedure in order to take over a trifling railway line three miles long?


John Dowsley Reid: It is necessary to have an Act passed if we wish to take this line over as part of the system.


Frank S. Cahill: Are we not the owners of this siding or little piece of railway line by virtue of owning the controlling stock of the Grand Trunk?


John Dowsley Reid: A sbhedule was attached' to the Act of last year setting forth the list of subsidiary companies that were being taken over. Mention of this line was omitted, and by dealing with it in this Bill it is proposed to complete the schedule.


Frank S. Cahill: Does the minister not
think that when he comes-before Parliament with a Bill to acquire a railway system he should be in a position to give some information as to what he proposes to acquire? The minister is not able to give any information about the transaction. Certainly it is a most unusual state of affairs.


Georges Henri Boivin: Shall the clause carry?


Frank S. Cahill: Just as soon as the minister provides the information we ask for.


John Dowsley Reid: I have every desire to give all the information that is in my possession but I cannot give the earnings of these three miles of railway. These three miles form a siding and the earnings are not kept separate from those of the parent company. I can assure the hon. gentleman that I have no desire whatever to withhold any information. If the information asked for in regard to this siding were of vital importance I would delay the passage of the Bill in order to obtain it, but I do not think it would be possible to get at the earning of these three miles, for the reason I have given.


Frank S. Cahill: If the minister is not able to tell us the earnings of this railway, I suppose be can at least give us the earnings of the parent company.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I may point out to my hon. friend that the introduction of the list of these roads into the agreement was only to comply with section 2 of the Act of last session which required that the agreement should contain provision for the defining of the company's properties and interests comprised in the Grand Trunk system, and we are dealing merely with an error in the list. The purpose of that defining is not to determine, nor are we determining in any way, what effect the ownership of these roads by the Grand Trunk, or the ownership of whatever rights they have in connection with them, will have on the value. That will be for the Board of Arbitrators to decide, and the only necessity for the mention of these roads is the fact that in the agreement we are obliged to have a definition of all these things. But their liabilities or their assets can have no bearing on the subject-matter of this particular Bill. The arbitrators will have to consider all these things when they deal with the matter.


James Alexander Robb: What the minister has said may be all right, but we have discovered since last session that there was an error in the Bill and the case is now all under review, and the people have a right to know what obligations we are assuming. Last year when the question was before Parliament the attention of the Minister of Railways was called to the fact that the capital stock of the Central Vermont Railway was $2,984,600, of which the Grand Trunk Railway owns $2,191,100. The outstanding funded debt is $11,750,000, the Grand Trunk Railway guaranteeing interest in bonds providing for deficiency up to 30 per cent of the gross receipts. What I want to call the attention of the minister to particularly is the fact that the Central Vermont Railway guarantees $200,000 worth of bonds of the Vermont and Province Line, and the Central Vermont Railway owns the stock and bonds of the Southern New England railway, which was partly built in and projected from Palmer, Massachusetts, to Providence, Rhode Island. This line has been abandoned and a suit is now pending for $3,000,000. The whole subject is under review to-night, since the minister has introduced a part of the Central Vermont railway, and this is an opportune time for him to make a statement as to how the citizens

of Canada will be affected if this suit goes against us. Will Canada be called upon to take up the defence that is now being conducted by the Central Vermont Railway on behalf of the Grand Trunk?


John Dowsley Reid: That suit has nothing to do with the particular errors we are correcting. Any suit or claim for damages against the Grand Trunk Railway will, of course, be taken into consideration by the arbitrators when the award is made.
Mr. MeKENZIE:	We are guaranteeing
the interest on many debentures and assuming heavy financial responsibilities with which the award has nothing to do. Even if there should never be any award we are still assuming great responsibilities, and the minister must not forget that fact. When the subject was before us last year we asked the Government to be considerate enough to submit the agreement to Parliament before sending it across to the old country, so that we might have an opportunity of examining it before it became a closed book. The minister will remember that we were denied that right, and it is only by a sort of providential accident that the thing is here now. We have the right to inquire into its contents and ask for as much information as we can possibly obtain in regard to it. If we are not permitted to do that, then it is childish to submit the agreement to this 'House. The agreement is now before us for the very first time, and it is only reasonable that hon. members should ask for information concerning it. The minister must not assume that there is any attempt to impose upon him or obstruct the passage of the Bill, but we submit that he should be prepared to give us all the information that he possibly can. If the minister says that he did not anticipate these questions, then I think it would be well for us to take time so that he may obtain the information that is sought.


John Dowsley Reid: Any information which the committee desires I shall be only too glad to submit, and if it is not available at the present moment I shall certainly endeavour to obtain it. I think we might proceed with the Bill, and as we go on we can see just what information is required. I am not finding any fault with members asking for information; they are entitled to all the information that I am able to give them. But I may not have it here this evening. Still, there may be some information that I can give. If there is any question asked

which I cannot answer to-night, and which the committee insists upon, I will have to give it at a subsequent sitting.


James Alexander Robb: We have a copy of the agreement which has been distributed to members of Parliament. That copy shows, on page 8, amongst the roads controlled by the Central Vermont Railway, 'the Montreal and Province Line Railway Company. The Bill now before us reads:
Vermont and Province Line Railroad Company, controlled by stock ownership,-100 per cent.
Is there a Vermont and Province Line Railroad Company as well as a Montreal and Province Line Railroad Company?


John Dowsley Reid: The Montreal and
Southern Counties Railway Company is the company whose Bill we passed this evening for an extension of time. That came up in the Railway Committee yesterday, I think. That is a railway running from Montreal to Granby. There is this other railway in addition to that.


James Alexander Robb: There is no reference whatever in this agreement to the road the minister has described. Is this for the purpose of adding the Vermont and Province line railway to the schedule of last year? The schedule of last year gave a list of the railways but this one was not in.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: There was an omission in the schedule of last year but it was passed as chapter 17 of the statutes of the second session of 1919, and therefore the omission must be corrected by this new Act.


Mr. PEDLOW:: Mr. Chairman, I think
it would ibe a good idea if the minister in charge of this Bill would divide it into two sections, send half of it down to this end of the Chamber and let us discuss it here. It is utterly impossible for us to understand what is going on at the other end of the Chamber.
Mr. CALDWEiLL:	If the hon. member
for South Renfrew (Mr. Pedlow) is making that as a motion I would be pleased to second it.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Before recess the minister said that he was rather anxious to take possession of the Grand 'Trunk because he expected it would enable him to improve the earnings of the other lines which belong to the Government. Will the accounts of each company be kept separately so that at the end of the year the country will be in a position to know what the earnings of each line have been?
Mr. J. D. 'REID: It has been the custom of all railways, not only the Canadian Northern,-the Canadian National as it is now-.but the Canadian Pacific, to keep a record of the different branches so that they shall know what their earnings are. But even if they do this it hardly shows the true position. The branch lines are feeders. The traffic that the main line gets from a branch line adds to the earnings of the railway as a whole and while the earnings of the branch line itself may bear a small proportion to the earnings of the main line as a whole and while the branch line may haul the traffic at a loss, yet the business shows a profit when you take into consideration the long haul. They do keep accounts separately.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Will there be a balance
sheet for the Intercolonial, the Quebec and Saguenay, the Grand Trunk, and the Canadian Northern?


John Dowsley Reid: These as well as the Grand Trunk Pacific will be kept separately.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Consequently, we would be able to know the financial position of all these lines although the lines combined will be carried on under the name of the Canadian National railways. Starting from that, is the minister in a position to tell us what the balance sheet of the Grand Trunk will show when we shall have acquired that road, or whether there will be a deficit or surplus, taking it separately from the other lines?


Georges Henri Boivin: This question is not
relevant to the clause under consideration. I do not wish to say that it is not relevant to the Bill-I think it is,-but if the hon. member would allow us to pass the clause, his question would be more in order under clause 2 which deals with the agreement itself.


Frank S. Cahill: Is the minister in a position to tell us the earnings of the parent company?


Georges Henri Boivin: The parent companies are both covered by the agreement the discussion of which will be in order as soon as we reach clause 2.


Frank S. Cahill: When the minister apparently was not in a position to state the earnings of the Vermont and Province Line Railroad Company we thought that perhaps he could give us the general balance sheet.


Georges Henri Boivin: I have just ruled that the question is not in order.


Frank S. Cahill: I ask now for a statement of the liabilities and assets.


Georges Henri Boivin: Order. I would ask
the hon. gentleman (Mr. Cahill) to kindly accept the ruling of the Chair.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: He is asking another
question.


Frank S. Cahill: Do I understand that 'the Montreal and Province Line Railway Company, controlled by stock ownership 100 per cent, is a subject that is open to debate under this present clause-


Georges Henri Boivin: Any question concerning the value of the Vermont and Province Line Railroad Company, or concerning its officers, has been allowed, and will be allowed if the question is repeated, but not a question concerning the parent company.


Frank S. Cahill: The question I am now putting is with regard to the control of the stock ownership of one hundred per cent of the Vermont and Province Line Railroad Company. I am asking for the balance sheet of that company. The minister said that he had sent for it; perhaps he has got it now and can submit it to the committee.


John Dowsley Reid: I have not got that information. It is only a three-mile line and I cannot say whether it has any separate system of accounting.


Ernest Lapointe: The minister does not care about a three-mile line.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I suppose it is just as broad as the other railway?


John Dowsley Reid: I think it is.


Mr. DUEF:: The minister states that he has not got a statement of the earnings and operating expenses of this great railway line called the Vermont and Province Line Railway, but he read from some book a list of officers of the company, and I remember distinctly that he mentioned the president, two vice-presidents, and several other officers. Now, Sir, I contend that if this company has been incorporated under the laws of some state of the American union and has a regularly appointed president, vice-presidents, and other officers, it certainly must keep a set of books and must at the end of each year be able to give a statement showing the earnings and the operating expenses of the line. It therefore seems to me that before we go any further the minister should be able to give us that information. It should be possible to find
[The Chairman.]
out the earnings and the liabilities of the road-the mortgages, the bonds, the current liabilities and everything else in connection with it-and before this clause is allowed to pass I would like the minister to give us that information.


John Dowsley Reid: I cannot furnish that information and I cannot see why it should be necessary to do so in connection with the passing of this Bill or the agreement as a whole. Parliament agreed that we were to take over the Grand Trunk Railway and its subsidiary companies. Now no matter what the earnings of this road might be the agreement stands, and I do not see how the information asked for really affects that agreement at all. The question is, are we going to take this line over with the rest of the properties of the company, because with lespect to it we have a one hundred per cent stock ownership. I do not want to appear as withholding any information; in fact I would be glad to get all the information asked for that could be obtained. I suppose it would be possible to get a statement if there was a separate accounting system for this railway, but it does strike me that in the case of three miles of railway, which after all is only a siding, a separate system of accounting would not be kept. The line is really part and parcel of the parent company. It does not appear to me that hon. gentlemen opposite should hold up this Bill because we have not got the operation returns for these three miles of railway.


William Duff: I cannot agree with the minister. In the first place he tells us that the Government, by agreement, has taken over the Grand Trunk lines and its subsidiaries, and I understand the reason for the introduction of this Bill to be that the two lines in question were not mentioned in the agreement last year, they were left out. The minister says he does not think the receipts and operating expenses of this particular line are kept separate. I cannot agree with him. If there was not some such system of accounting the company would not have a president, vice-president, and other officers. The fact that the company has a separate organization, whether the line is three miles or three thousand miles long, indicates that it must keep a set of books and be able to strike a balance at the end of each year. The minister ought also to give us a statement about the Pembroke Southern Railway Company. We do not know whether it is a separate line, or

whether it is a branch of the Grand Trunk railway. Before we pass this clause we certainly should have the information asked for.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Perhaps I might call the attention of the hon. gentleman to the fact that he is apparently under a misapprehension.


William Duff: So is the Minister of Railways.


Charles Joseph Doherty: In that case I might also call [DOT] the attention of the Minister of Railways to the fact, and see whether we cannot remove both misapprehensions at the same time. The hon. gentleman talks about our acquiring these roads, and seems to labour under the belief that if these corrections in the list of railways are not made there will be no acquisition. Let me point out that it is not we who are acquiring the roads.


William Duff: That is what the Minister of Railways has told us.


Charles Joseph Doherty: What we will acquire is the stock of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and we will acquire that stock. Whether the list in question is a correct or inioarreot one, the company will still, after the acquisition of the stock is completed, own whatever interests it now has in these companies, but we will be the stockholders of the Grand Trunk. Now the whole object of this list is simply to comply with the provisions of the statute of last year. That statute requires that the agreement should contain provisions defining what were the properties, companies, and so forth, pertaining to the Grand Trunk railway, and the purpose of this legislation is simply to make that list correct. It does not alter what we acquired or what we want to acquire. Whether that list is made correct or not, what we will acquire is the stock of the Grand Trunk railway. It can affect injuriously nobody's interest that we should have this list made more correct, but it may be useful to the arbitrators when they come to deal with the question of valuation. The question as to who is the president of these roads, or what their assets and liabilities are, does not make a particle of difference in connection with making the list correct. Whatever obligations may attach to the Grand Trunk Railway Company because of its holdings, these roads will still attach to the company just as much after we have acquired the stock as before, and just as much whether these
particular companies are put into the list or not.


William Duff: I am sure the Minister of Railways and myself are obliged to the Minister of Justice for the information which he has just given. That information evidently satisfies the Minister of Railways from the fact that he has given utterance to an approving "hear, hear," but it certainly does not satisfy me. First of all I would like the Minister of Justice to answer this question: In the event of our not passing the clause which mentions these two railways, will the people of Canada then have to take them over and operate them? Now I contend that' in the Bill we passed last fall those two lines were not mentioned, consequently, unless we take them over under the clause we are considering to-night, we need not operate them in the future.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Whether or not under this clause we could acquire these roads is immaterial for we are not going to acquire them; we are going to acquire the stock of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. I understand these roads are held by the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and after we have acquired its stock it will still continue to hold them. We will have control ofHhe Grand Trunk Railway Company, and having that control, we will be able to determine whether we will operate these roads or not. Inasmuch as the statute requires that there should be a defining of what does belong to the Grand Trunk Railway Company, the whole purpose of this is to make that definition correct, and it does not alter one iota what we are going to acquire or what we are not going to acquire. Through an unfortunate error on the part of the Grand Trunk people one of these roads was omitted and the interest of the Grand Trunk Company in the other was incorrectly described, but by making this amendment, when the matter goes before the Board of Arbitrators there will be a correct list and the statute will have been complied with.


William Stevens Fielding: I am afraid my hon.
friend proves too much. According to his contention there is no need of any schedule or of this amendment, because he says: After we have acquired the stock of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, that is the whole story. Having got the schedule blundered, why does he need now to come and correct it?


Charles Joseph Doherty: For the simple reason that the statute of last session required that the agreement should contain this list, and we want to comply with the statute; that is all.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend was responsible for the statute.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes.


William Stevens Fielding: He is proving that they passed a statute containing a schedule of no value whatever, and now he is going to make further trouble by amending the schedule which he says is not needed at all.


Charles Joseph Doherty: If the hon. gentleman will only be capable of treating this statute calmly, I do not think there need be any trouble at all. I would have thought that anything so obvious as a desire to comply with the law should not cause trouble. That law requires-whether the hon. gentleman approves it or not-that a certain agreement should contain, to use the exact words:
Provisions for the defining of the company's properties and interests comprised in the Grand Trunk system.
If we had to go back to discuss why the statute required that definition, I think I could point out some very good reasons, but that is not what we are eon-
9 p.m. cerned with now. The statute did require that that should be done, but in the drafting of that definition by an unfortunate error or oversight on the part of the Grand Trunk people one of these particular little roads was overlooked and the interest of the Grand Trunk Railway Company in the other was incorrectly stated. Certainly when the statute required that definition, it presupposed a correct definition. Unfortunately the Grand Trunk in this particular made an error, as I have said, and what is sought to accomplish, so far as this section is concerned, is to correct that error so that the requirement of section 3 of the statute of last year may be complied with. As I say, it would seem to me that once any one had correctly grasped that requirement, there could not be any possible occasion for trouble, but it ought to be complied with as indicated.


William Stevens Fielding: But if the schedule is unnecessary and superfluous-and my hon. friend has proved that to his own satisfaction-it is not important to have it corrected. If the schedule is no good, whether it is correct or not cannot affect the rights of the people of Canada, for he says they

are all protected by our acquisition of the Grand Trunk Company's stock. My hon. friend says we are making trouble; on the contrary he is making all the trouble by bringing this Bill here.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I am amazed that my hon. friend considers compliance with the statute law of this country to be absolutely superfluous. What I pointed out was that a thing may be useful, though it does not bear on some particular matter; and a correct definition of the property and interests comprised in the Grand Trunk system was thought by Parliament last year to be a useful thing to be annexed to this agreement, and Parliament enacted that it should be so annexed. In my judgment compliance with the law is not superfluous. It is quite a sufficient reason why a thing ought to be done that the law requires it to be done, and it is not necessary, in order that there should be a reason for complying with the law, that the thing required to be done be useful for the particular purpose mentioned. It would have no bearing, and it can have no bearing, and I have nothing to withdraw in saying	so-upon	what
is the stock of the Grand Trunk Railway Company-the thing that we are going to acquire. But Parliament thought, and, I believe, wisely thought, that it was a most useful thing that the agreement with regard to the acquisition of the stock-that is what was to be acquired-should contain a definition of these rights and interests. As I say, an unfortunate error was made, and we must correct that error if we are going to comply with the law. One of its utilities, and one of the things that I think led to its being required, was so that when the board of arbitrators is called upon to act under this agreement it should have set forth within the agreement itself what are the properties and interests of this Grand Trunk Company whose stock we are going to acquire.


James Alexander Robb: Now that the minister has stated that the real object of this legislation is to correct the list, will he explain why the Vermont and Province Line is not mentioned in the schedule on page 11 of the Bill?


Charles Joseph Doherty: The reason is that if it had been mentioned in the schedule there would be no need to have an amendment to insert it now. It was apparently an oversight on the part of the Grand Trunk Railway people in preparing this list, and now we want to make good the omission.. The

very section we are dealing with provides for a correction of that schedule by adding this road that was left out.


Jean-Joseph Denis: In giving the names of their children they forgot one of them, having so many.


Charles Joseph Doherty: ' Yes. The hon. gentleman comes from a province of large families and realizes how easily that might happen.


Mr.   M@: They do not forget the names of any of their children, though.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Never has it been known in our province that the father forgot the names of his children.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The hon. gentleman
pointed out a minute ago how probable it was to omit the names of children in a large family.


William Stevens Fielding: And the names are always found in the church register.


Charles Joseph Doherty: .The Grand Trunk did not properly attend to the baptism of these children, so we cannot look up the baptismal register.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: While in theory my hon. friend's statement about our desire to own this stock is right, in practice and for the purpose that Parliament had in view in acquiring this road, it is not strictly correct. It is useless for the Government, and more especially it is useless for the Minister of Justice, to endeavour rto convince the people of Canada thajt we are mere stockholders ; that we are merely a nation which has money to invest in stock; that we have invested that money in the stock of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and after we have made the investment we shall complacently sit back and wait until we get dividends. That is pot the correct situation. In one way it is-that is, we are acquiring the stock. Whait are the responsibilities of a man who acquires stock in any corporation? He pays for the stock whatever the price is; he puts the stock in his strong box in the bank or in his safe, if he has one, and then he waits until he receives dividends on (that stock or until he hears that there is to be no dividend. That is the situation in regard to any stockholder in any limited liability company. Is that the condition here? We have millions of stock in this concern, and when the end of the year comes there is no dividend; on the contrary, there is a huge deficit up in the millions of dollars. Who pays that deficit? Will my hon. friend and all the Test of the members of the House say: Oh, well, it is nothing to us that the road is in debt and is not paying its way; it is true we have the stock, but let the company look about them for money with which to run the road. What will happen is that the treasury of Canada and the people of Canada will pay the debt. Can it be said, in view of those circumstances, that we are mere stockholders in this concern? The situation is more complex than that. We take the stock merely as a means of getting the physical assets of this road under our management and control; we pay for the stock, and we shall pay for the running of the road, and we shall also pay the deficits; so that we are in an entirely different position from that of the ordinary stockholder. I am sure nobody understands that better than the Minister of Justice, and it would be just as well to tell the Canadian people candidly that they are not merely stockholders, but owners of the physical assets of the road, and that if it does not pay it is the Canadian people who will have to make good the deficit.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 2-agreement as corrected ratified.
William Stevens Fielding: There are necessarily
two parties or more to an agreement. In this case, there are two; the party of the first part is the Government of Canada and the Parliament of Canada of which the Government is a committee; the party of the second part is the Grand Trunk Railway Company with its associated and subsidiary companies and the various financial groups with which it Is associated and which have more or less power in connection with the management of its affairs. We, the party of the first part, have made a blunder. When I say "we," I use that expression in the sense that we are all responsible for the acts of Parliament. Whether we agree with them or not, we have to bow to the judgment of the majority, and we are all jointly responsible for the conclusions that are reached. The Government and the Parliament of Canada have made a mistake, which at one stage of the discussion was spoken of-as a matter of little or no importance, and which, at another stage, we were reminded, was a matter of grave concern. Whether the blunder be great or small, it is a blunder for which we are responsible, and we, the Government and Parliament of Canada, can properly be called upon to make good that blunder. That is what is

done by the first clause of the Bill, and to that extent I quite agree -with hon. gentlemen opposite that we are taking a proper course.
I come to the question of the party of the second part, which is the Grand Trunk Railway Company and the various companies consolidated with it, with their varying greater or lesser voting power. Has this company fulfilled its part? Has it carried out the intention of the law? Eminent counsel in England representing the Grand Trunk Railway Company have said that it has, and eminent counsel representing the *Government of Canada say the same. We have run up a bill of legal expenses that, I have no doubt, will amount to thousands of dollars, and Whether in the first instance that is paid by the Grand Trunk Railway Company or by anybody else, it is pretty safe to venture the statement that in the end the treasury of Canada will foot the bill. All these legal expenses have resulted in the conclusion that this company has performed its part all right. If that be correct, why should, we go any further? But, says the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty), there is a doubt; that is, he says, I cannot admit a doubt myself, but somebody has suggested that there is a doubt; the old Great Western of Canada, which was consolidated years ago with the Grand Trunk had certain rights in the la/tter company, and it is said that some of the shareholders of that concern were not properly notified, and that, in consequence of that or of some other minor irregularity, these proceedings are invalid and the proceedings of the so-called meeting in London have no legal effect at all. I am not endorsing that view, nor saying that it is correct, but is this a matter in which the Parliament of Canada should presume to interfere? We should interfere to correct our own blunders, but we have no right to come and declare that something the company has done, which is a matter of dispute, is a legal and valid bargain, because that is a matter for the company to deal with. If it is all right, let it stand at that. If it is all wrong, we must leave the company to make good the error by its own act and in its own way. It is not the duty of this Parliament to declare something in the name of the company when we are told that members of the company or of interests connected with it are dissatisfied with the proceedings. The Minister of Justice said-and I think ithe Minister of Railways (Mr. J. D. Reid) said the same thing-this does not make any difference, because if all thest parties had

been present and had voted against the resolution, the result would have been just the same. I am surprised that a lawyer would use that argument. The question whether this would make a difference in votes cannot make any difference in regard to the legality of the proceeding. If the thing is legal and valid, the question of votes does not affect it in any way.
There is this other view that I might mention. It may very well be contended that it is conceivable, if these parties had been present and if they had the plausibility of my esteemed friend the Minister of Justice, they might have been able to persuade all those other stockholders that they were wrong. Therefore, I do not think the question whether they were few ox many affects this matter at all. While it is right and proper that we should correct our own blunder, it would be a highly improper procedure for us to undertake to say that something which was done by the company in London and which appears to the Government of Canada to be a matter of dispute, was a valid proceeding. Let the company, if the proceeding was a defective one, correct it, just as we must be left to correct our own mistakes. That is the proper course to adopt. I have alfeady referred to the point raised by the Minister of Railways as to the delay that would take place, and I have pointed out that while we have been debating this matter the company have called a meeting; and if they have called one meeting by a notice inserted in the Canada Gazette, there would be no difficulty in calling a meeting in another manner if that were necessary, so that they might do in a proper manner what we are being asked to do here in violation of all sound legal procedure. I am going to ask the Government to be content with correcting the error for which we are responsible. I therefore respectfully move that clause 2 be amended by striking out all the words after the word " agreement " in the first line thereof and substituting therefor the following words r
-as hereby corrected, shall be as binding and effective as it would have been if the alterations set forth in the first section of this Act had been made in the schedule at the time the agreement was executed.
We say that so far as we made a mistake in omitting the names of these companies, we correct our error; but if the company has made any mistake; if the comlpany has been guilty of any neglect; if the company has failed in any respect to carry out the provisions and intentions of the Act for the

acquisition of the Grand Trunk Railway system, we must leave it to the company to make good; we must not undertake to make good for them.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The hon. gentleman
premises his argument by an argument based upon the statement that the Government of Canada made one blunder and the Grand Trunk Railway Company another, and he conceives that it belongs to the Government to propose legislation such as may be necessary to correct its blunder. But we are going entirely out of our way, he says, going beyond what it is right for us to do, to correct what he calls the blunder of the Grand Trunk Railway Company.


William Stevens Fielding: If it was a blunder.


Charles Joseph Doherty: If it was a blunder.
Let me in the first place point out that so far as there have been blunders, if we may so call them, neither of them are attributable to the Government of Canada. The definition of the property and interests of the Grand Trunk Railway Company must necessarily come from the company itself Now, I would not speak of it as a blunder. Through an error, the officers of the Grand Trunk Railway Company in making this list omitted the -name of one bit of road three miles long, and in the case of another road erroneously stated - the nature of their interest in it. If that is to be called a " blunder," it was the " blunder" of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. If there -was any irregularity in the calling of the meeting and if we are going to call that a blunder, that, too, was the blunder of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. It was calling this meeting for the purpose of enabling its shareholders to ratify this agreement. It had control of the procedure of calling that meeting. So far I agree with the hon. gentleman that if what happened in that respect is to be called a blunder it was the blunder of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. But as he himself has pointed out, the Grand Trunk Railway Company does not admit that there was any irregularity or any blunder. They say: We have held a perfectly proper meeting under the statute and have therefore completely complied with our agreement. As the hon. gentleman has. also pointed out, counsel on behalf of the Government are disposed to share that opinion. That being so, shall we say to the Grand Trunk Railway Company, which itself contends it has committed no error:	"You gentlemen must
get together; you must call another meeting"? If the doubt that has been 85
raised is not settled that doubt will lead to the prejudice of the owners of the stock of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, that is to say, to the prejudice of the people of this country. This question has been raised as a question that suggests a doubt whether the title that is given to the people of this country under this agreement will be a valid title. Who is most interested in having that doubt settled? 'Is it the shareholders of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, who are parting with their stock, or is it those who are acquiring the stock? Who is it in any purchase of property who is interested in seeing that the title is beyond question? Of course, it is the purchaser; it is the acquirer. In every transaction for the acquisition of property is it the vendor who goes hunting round to find out whether or not his title is perfectly good or whether the title he has given the other man is perfectly good? Why, it is the purchaser who is anxious to satisfy himself, first, that the vendor had a good title, and, second, that the instrument by which the vendor is conveying it to him gives him a valid and effective title. In the opinion of counsel for the Grand Trunk Railway Company and of counsel for the Government the question that is raised does not affect the validity of the title. We are agreed upon that, and the Grand Trunk Railway Company naturally says: I have neither interest nor obligation to clear away whatever cloud may exist as against that title that you are going to acquire by reason of the fact that some counsel has suggested a possible doubt. It is the result of the action of the Parliament of Canada that the acquisition is made. As the hon. gentleman has very properly pointed out, it is not a question of who voted for it or who voted against it; it is the action of Parliament that brings about this acquisition. The Government feel that inasmuch as we are the agents and representatives of the people in the acquisition of this stock, it behooves us to see to it that the people get a title upon which there shall be no cloud. If there be suggested to a purchaser a doubt as to the validity of his title to a property, does he sit back in calm repose and say: Well, my vendor's counsel says it is all right and my lawyer is convinced that it is all right? No, he will say: Some people think that there may be a question of the validity of my title; I will take proper and effective methods to quiet that doubt. All of us who have had to do with titles know what steps are taken to quiet such doubts. Now, this is what we are asking Parliament to do, in the



interests of the people of Canada and with no risk of doing injustice to anybody. The real effect of this enactment is to leave the people of Canada with a title safe from any attack upon the basis of a doubt which rests upon purely technical grounds. That is the position; it is very clear and very simple. What can we be reproached for? When we ask Parliament to give an afternoon of its time to do that which will remove this possible cloud upon the title of the people of Canada, is it an entirely useless trouble? Would not any one of us take just as much trouble for the purpose of making clear beyond peradventure the title to property that we were acquiring? That is the whole mystery that is involved in this matter, and I confess that I am surprised that it should be suggested that we were taking an extraordinary amount of trouble to do something which it is said the Grand Trunk Railway Company ought to d.o.
Of course, if the mistake be the Grand Trunk Railway Company's admitted mistake they ought to correct it. But Parliament lias decided that it is in the interests of the people of this country to acquire this road, and therefore it is our duty to carry out the mandate of Parliament given at its last session, and to carry the agreement through for the acquisition of the road. And when the party on the other side says that he has done his part, and we are not in a position to take strong ground that he has not, the most that can he said being that there is a doubt in the matter, surely the part of justice to the people of Canada, without injury to any one concerned, the part of common sense; and, above all, the part of a trustee doing his full duty,- is to take the measures and means at our hand to remove the cloud and place the people-inasmuch as they have decided that they will acquire the road-in a position to obtain a title not susceptible of attack even unfounded, attack based upon such difficulties as have been brought to our attention in this matter. I submit that the amendment which is moved is one that, if carried, can have only one possible effect, and that is to deprive the people of Canada of an additional security with regard to their title to that which they are about to acquire; and I cannot understand why amy persons in the Parliament of Canada should think it incumbent upon them to see to it that the Government do not make sure of a clear title in favour of the people.


William Stevens Fielding: I did state that the Government had made a blunder in regard to that which we proposed to correct in the first section of the Act. I do not attach very much importance to that point, however, and shall not dwell upon it. But let me give my hon. friend a simple illustration. If I agree with a merchant for the purchase of a dozen barrels of flour, and I pay him or give him my notes, which is what the Government has done in this case,-


Charles Joseph Doherty: We have not paid anything yet.


William Stevens Fielding: If I obligate myself for the dozen barrels, and be gives me ten and I go away satisfied, I think I have made a blunder. And that is what these gentlemen have done. They have accepted the ten barrels of flour, having agreed to pay for a dozen; and if they accuse the Grand Trunk of trying to mislead and deceive them, though the Grand Trunk may be in part responsible the Government are also responsible for their own mistake. If I go deliberately and take ten barrels of flour and pay for twelve, I can hardly blame any one for my blunder. But that is not the important point. In the argument of purchaser and vendor my hon. friend has made an amazing mistake, or rather I should say there is amazing weakness in his contention. In the ordinary relations between purchaser and vendor there is no Parliamentary power in question. The ordinary purchaser and the ordinary vendor will each do the best he can to protect himself, and will make the necessary arrangements to insure that he will be fairly treated. But my hon. friend forgets that the Parliament, of Canada in this matter is not a purchaser. We are called upon to exercise, not the ingenuity of a purchaser, but the power of a legislative body. We are called upon to exercise the supreme power of Parliament when we take away Lorn some one in England a right and privilege which , he thinks he has. There is no getting over that. Some people in England-erroneously, I am willing to believe, if my hon. friend says so,- allege that they have a grievance. They did not get proper notice, or' some right or other was not accorded them, and if they are to be suppressed it is by Act of Parliament and not by any action of an ordinary purchaser. We are in a sense a purchaser, but we are, in the higher sense, a Parliament; and if any man in England, connected even remotely with the Grand

Trunk Company, feels that he has been improperly treated owing to some defect in the proceedings in the meeting over there, it is not the business of this Parliament to turn him out of court. He should be left to the courts of the country to have his grievance settled. When my hon. friend applies the ordinary law of purchaser and vendor to the present case, he overlooks the fact that at this moment we are not acting as purchasers but are exercising our Parliamentary power, and undertaking to do that which the purchaser in ordinary transactions has no power to do.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I do not wish to detain the House unduly in connection with the discussion, either of the clause or of the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Queen's and Shelburne. You must have observed with pleasure, Mr. Chairman, the recent accession to the Government ranks. No doubt hon. members opposite were called in so that they might be ready to vote on a question the discussion of which they had but partly heard, in prder that the Government might be saved from such a defeat as was obviated the other evening by your casting vote. No doubt instructions were given to this end to the members supporting the ministry in this House. I do not propose to go over the debate which was held in the House on the question of the Grand Trunk acquisition last year. Wisdom is justified in its children, and I am glad to say that rarely in the history of this country has the Liberal party taken a stand in regard to which it was not justified before many years, or indeed months, had elapsed. The Liberal party took a stand last session against the acquisition of this railway on the terms proposed, and we have not had to wait very many months before that stand has been justified by the events that have occurred since. When we pointed out last session that a certain stock-I forget which, but I think it was the four per cent debenture stock-had^ risen by reason, of the expectation of the taking over of the railway by the Government, from the neighbourhood of between 40 and 50 to somewhere between 70 and 80, we were told it mattered little. We also pointed out that the Grand Trunk Railway in the last few years had spent money on dividends which should have been applied to railway betterments. But all in vain; the Government insisted upon the Bill going through as it was proposed. One of the great arguments made by the Government at that time was that 854
we must deal not only justly but generously with the British investor, the idea being that we were not only helping the British investor but that we were helping the Canadian borrower who in time to come, would be seeking capital overseas. I hold in my hand a report of the meeting-of a meeting -of the Grand Trunk shareholders held in London on the 19th February. It is reported in The Times of Friday, 20th February 1920. I think it is essential that these facts should be put before the people of this country so that they may understand fully how mistaken the Government were in thinking that they could conserve the credit or prestige of Canada in the minds of people who had made a loss by imposing what we denounced as an improper and improvident bargain u'pon the Canadian people. I read first from the remarks made by Mr. Reginald Woodworth: He said:
I have for the last three years voiced my feelings pretty strongly at the meetings of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. I have felt- and I know something about Canada, for I have friends and relations living there who are engaged in financial and other operations-I have felt that we were going to be let down. At that time Sir Alfred. Smithers would not accept that view. Of course, being the head of this company, he could not accept it; but now he has acknowledged that I am right. I have seen that the Government would do, and was doing, all in its power to depreciate our property and buy us up at a breaking-up price. That is what is going to happen, and my reason for speaking to you is this. No one in this room feels more bitter, more disgusted, with the attitude adopted by the Canadian Government than I do myself.
Further on this gentleman proceeded to say:
The Government had absolutely made up its mind to get this company at a bankrupt price, (Cries of " Shame.'')
You will remember that in the debate which occurred on this matter last autumn the hon. member for Shelburne and'Queen's (Mr. Fielding) pointed out that there had been a rise of about $28,000,009 in the price quoted for certain shares of the Grand Trunk upon the stock exchange in London. Nevertheless these shareholders say that the Government was endeavouring to buy their property from them <it a bankrupt price. Another gentleman, Mr. Grant Hooper, said:
I am the holder of several thousand pounds of third preference stock, and I therefore take a keen interest in the company. I appreciate all that you have said to us to-day, and I feel that there is little more to be said, except that we should, as it were, dot the i's and cross the t's. I feel that a government is no more entitled to act dishonestly than an individual - (hear, hear)-and, whether it is the British

Government or the Canadian Government, I say that it should not act dishonestly.
Then he proposed that the following resolution should toe passed:
That this meeting, though accepting the agreement imposed upon the company, protests against the treatment to which it has been subjected by being refused permission to increase rates and in the limitation of the amount of the arbitration award.
But probably the gem of the whole meeting-and I believe this will interest members no matter whether they sit on this side of the (House or the other-was a .speech delivered by a reverend gentleman toy the name of the Rev. (Leonard Dawson. In mv experience I have generally found that when ministers of the gospel, or priests of any denomination, enter into mundane affairs they are generally as outspoken in their remarks as are the laity and this gentleman was no exception to the rule. Here are his words:	,
Rev. Leonard Dawson said that he was a considerable holder of the third preference and ordinary shares, and he had lived in Canada for a number of years. He thought they ought to look at the other side of the picture. The great trouble all along had been that this company was an English company. Their shares were not even quoted on the stock exchange in Canada and their board had been almost wholly an English board (a voice-quite right). They were dealing with-he put it quits frank-ly-a Canadian Government, which had no morals.
My admiration for this Government does not ooze out at the soles of my boots, Mr. Chairman,* but I would certainly be loath to say that in the private walks of life and in their personal personality-if that is not tantological-they were devoid of morals. It is true they sit before us as usurpers; it is true that they are responsible if not directly at least indirectly-because those who were not directly responsible joined with those who were-for the War-time Elections Act.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Nesbitt):: I would ask my hon. friend what that has to do with the clause under consideration.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I will explain to the
Chair.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I do
not require any explanation. It has nothing to do with the clause under consideration.


Andrew Ross McMaster: You asked for an explanation.
fMr. McMaster.]


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Please
confine yourself to the clause and the amendment.


Mr. McMASTBR:: I will continue reading the article:
They were dealing with-he would put it quite frankly-with the Canadian Government which had no morals.
I was endeavouring to show that I did not agree with a statement as sweeping as that.
In a case in which he was concerned, as regarded irrigation, a provincial government controlled the water, and he could get no justice at all. The political machine was simply crashing the institution of which he was in charge. At last in desperation he came down to the political field ; he became chairman of a political association. They fought an election, and the Government were beaten. He mentioned that as an illustration of what they had to do in Canada if they wanted justice. An electric company out there-an English company-did what he would personally support; they sent a man over to the other side to manage the local legislature and he di<) so to such an extent that he " the speaker " told the legislature " We will never support you again. We put you in to do justly, and you have been bought."


Edward Walter Nesbitt: My
hon. friend knows very well that has nothing to do with the clause. I shall have to ask the hon. member to confine his remarks to the question. The reading of that stuff has nothing to do with the question.


William Stevens Fielding: The proceedings of the Grand Trunk meeting called for the purpose of carrying out this agreement with the Government?-surely have something to do with this question


Edward Walter Nesbitt: The
proceedings of the Grand Trunk meeting, if the hon. gentleman would confine himself to what we are discussing here, might have something to do with it, but the conduct of an electric railway company in British Columbia has nothing to do with it.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I am trying to show
the House how the shareholders of the Grand Trunk Railway Company regarded this bargain which was passed presumably in their interest. That is what I am trying * to show. I believe it is competent for me to do so, and I trust you will, after further consideration, concur in that view. It certainly show's veTy plainly what the attitude of these shareholders is in regard to the agreement which we are asked to-night to confirm.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I have already stated that in my opinion, the re-

port which the hon. member has read, has nothing to do with the question -before the committee.
Mr. McMAjSTER : Then, Mr. Chairman, I respectfully appeal from your ruling.
the members were called in. I. now -have the original statement handed to me by the Chairman (Mr. Nesbitt).


William Stevens Fielding: The question as originally put?
Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER took the Chair and submitted the question to the House in the following terms:
During the debate in Committee of the Whole on Bill No. 54 concerning the Grand Trunk Railway Company, Mr. McMaster, while discussing clause 2 of the said Bill and the amendment of Mr. -Fielding thereto, was reading from a newspaper an alleged report of a meeting of the shareholders of the Grand Trunk Railway -Company, -when he was called to order by the Chairman, Mr. Nesbitt, and upon the ground that the same was not relevant to the clause. From this ruling Mr. McMaster appealed to the House.


Georges Henri Boivin: Shall the ruling of the Chairman (Mr. Nesbitt) be sustained?
Air. AlcAlASTER: Mr. Speaker-


Georges Henri Boivin: Order. Shall
the ruling of the Chairman be sustained?
Some hon. A1EMBERS: Aye.
Some hon. A1EA1BERS: No.


Georges Henri Boivin: In my opinion the " Ayes" have it. Call in the -members.
The members having been called in:
Air. DEPUTY 'SPEAKER (reading):
During the debate in Committee of the Whole on Bill No. 54 concerning the Grand Trunk Railway Company, Mr. McMaster, while discussing clause 2 of the said. Bill and the amendment of Mr. Fielding thereto, was reading from a newspaper an alleged report of a speech referring to an electric railway in British Columbia delivered at a meeting of the shareholders of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, when he was called to order by the Chairman (Mr. Nesbitt) upon the ground that the same was not relevant to the clause. From this ruling Mr. McMaster appealed to the House.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would like to ask, Mr. Speaker, if what you have just read to the House is the exact question put to the House before the members were called in?


Georges Henri Boivin: I have read the statement just returned to me from the Table but it does not appear to be exactly the same as the question put in the first instance.


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Georges Henri Boivin: Yes, I shall read the question as originally put:
During the debate in Committee of the Whole on Bill No. 54 concerning the Grand Trunk Railway Company, Mr. McMaster while discussing clause 2 of the said Bill and the amendment of Mr. Fielding thereto, was reading from a newspaper an alleged report of a meeting of the shareholders of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, when he was called to order by the Chairman (Mr. Nesbitt) upon the ground that the same was not relevant to the clause. From this ruling Mr. McMaster appealed to the House.


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: That is correct.


Georges Henri Boivin: The Speaker must take the vote after the members have Baldwin, been summoned to the Chamber upon the Chisholm exact question put to the House before d'Anjou.
Messrs.
Lapointe.
Leger,
McKenzie,
McMaster-

D6ch6ne,	Molloy,
Denis,	Murphy,
Duff,	Pedlow,
Fafard,	Pelletier,
Fielding,	Power,
Fortier,	Proulx,
Fournier,	Robb,
Halbert,	Savard,
Johnston,	Trahan,
Kennedy (Essex N.), King.	Turgeon.-29.
PAIRS.	
(The list of Pairs Whips.)	is furnished by the Chief
Messrs.	
Burrell,	Boland,
Green,	White (Victoria),
Borden, Sir Robert,	Lemieux,
Kemp, Sir Edward,	Prevost,
Doherty, '	Marcil (Bonaventure),
Charlton,	McCoig,
McGregor,	Pacaud,
White, Sir Thomas,	Jacobs,
Myers,,	Bureau,
McQuarrie,	Kay,
Bowman,	Truax,
Stewart, T. J..	Copp,
Tudhope,	Sinclair, J. H.,
Clements,	Archambault,
Halladay,	Devlin,
Rowell,	Papineau,
Buchanan,	Ross,
Ballantyne.	Bourassa,
Drayton, Sir Henry,	Boyer,
Foster, Sir George,	Brouillard,
Mewburn,	Cannon,
Munson,	Cardin,
Sifton,	Casgrain,
Anderson,	Delisle,
Armstrong (York),	Demers,
Armstrong (Lambton), Desaulniers,	
Ball,	Deslauriers,
Bolton,	DuTremtolay,
Boys,	Ethier,
Bristol,	Euler,
Campbell,	Fontaine,
Casselman,	Gauthier,
Chabot,	Gauvreau,
Chaplin,	Gervais,
Charters,	Gladu,
Clarke (Wellington),	Hunt,
Currie,	Lafortune,
Finley,	Lanctdt,
Glass,	Lavigueur,
Griesbach,	Leduc,
Hocken,	Lesage,
Lalor,	McCrea,
Mackie (Edmonton),	McGibbon
	(Argenteuil),
Maclean (Halifax),	Marcile (Bagot),
Maclean (York),	Mayrand,
McGregor,	Michaud,
McIntosh,	Pardee,
McLean (Royal),	Parent,
Merner	S6guin.
The House thereupon resumed in committee.-Mr. Boivin in the Chair.


Andrew Ross McMaster: 
Georges Henri Boivin: The question is now
on the main motion. Shall clause 2 carry?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: In introducing this Bill the minister mentioned that he had two purposes in view: first, the correcting of these errors-this the minister said was the really substantial purpose of the Bill-and, second, that of ratifying the entire agreement. In the amendment which has just been voted down we on this side expressed our willingness to meet the Government in the matter of correcting the errors and of giving what was necessary in the way of ratification in that connection. The fact that the Government is not satisfied with what it proposes as the main purpose of this Bill leaves but one impression, and that is that in asking for ratification of the agreement as a whole there is some ulterior object which thus far has not appeared. When we are asked to ratify the entire agreement it is only proper that we on this side, before expressing our views one way or another upon it, should express our opinions in regard to any features of the agreement which we think should be made the subject of review before the final vote is taken.
In this House a day or two ago we had an important discussion on the manner in which certain of the employees of the Grand Trunk Railway Company have been treated by the company in regard to pensions to which they believed themselves to be entitled. As hon. members will recall, in the strike of 1910, which involved all the employees of the Grand Trunk Railway system, a settlement was effected whereby the employees were to be reinstated in their former positions. After the agreement had been adopted and the employees had returned to their duties, they found, much to their amazement, that the Grand Trunk Railway Company was unwilling to give them their rights in the matter of pensions.
In the agreement which we are being called' upon to ratify I find the following under the caption "Superannuation and Pension Funds," which is section 17 of the agreement :
The Grand Trunk Superannuation Fund shall continue in existence and shall continue to be administered as at present, and in accordance with the rules and regulations governing the same. The rules and regulations of the Grand

Trunk pension system shall continue to he applicable to employees of the Grand Trunk system until a general pension scheme applicable to all employees of Canadian Government owned or controlled railways shall be adopted and become effective. The rules and regulations ot the Grand Trunk Insurance and Provident Society shall continue to be applicable unless and until the Government shall adopt and make effective a general insurance scheme applicable to all employees of Canadian Government owned or controlled railways. In no case shall any acquired rights or vested interests in either the pension system or the Insurance and Provident Society be affected.
It will be perfectly apparent from this section of the agreement that the pension scheme of the Grand Trunk Bailway Company is an important feature of it. But the two sentences to which I wish to direct particular attention are the following:
The rules and regulations of the Grand Trunk pension system shall continue to be applicable to the employees of the Grand Trunk system until a general pension scheme applicable to all employees of Canadian Government owned or. controlled railways shall be adopted and become effective. ... In no case shall any acquired rights or vested interests in either the pension system or the Insurance and Provident Society be affected.
The employees of the Grand Trunk who were involved in that strike have been deprived of their rights in the matter of pensions. The company claim that that is in consequence of the employees having gone on strike. As was stated in the House the other day, there is no doubt from a reading of the agreement in settlement of the strike that the company was obliged to reinstate the employees in their former positions and that their status was to be what it formerly had been. Any one interpreting the language as the ordinary man would interpret it-certainly as the employees involved in the strike interpreted it-would be led to feel and would have good reason to believe that the employees should have all the rights which they would have had if they had not gone out on strike.
But, Sir, the discussion the other day brought forth a statement from the Minister of Justice which really has caused me to intervene at this stage of the discussion and to ask that before we ratify this agreement this Parliament take such action as will make it absolutely certain that employees of the Grand Trunk Bailway Company receive what is their due from the company. When this matter came up the other day it was pointed out that some legal technicality might prevent the employees from receiving their rights, and the attention of the Government was directed
fMr. Mackenzie 7Dng\]
to the distinction between what might be a legal right and what might be a moral obligation. I think I am correct in saying that the Minister of Justice said that the Government would impress upon the Board of Arbitrators just as strongly as they could the desirability of taking into account any claims which the employees of the Grand Trunk Bailway Company might feel that they had in respect of their claims to pensions. I understood him to say that if the Board of Arbitrators found there were legal reasons which would make it impossible for the board to regard the liability of the Grand Trunk these claims in respect to pensions, then there would be a moral obligation upon the Government when it became .sole owner of the road to rnakb good these pensions. What does that amount to? It means that the Government is prepared to say to the Board of Arbitrators:	If you cannot find that the employees are legally entitled to these pensions and that the Grand Trunk Bailway Company should be held liable for them, we will shift that liability over to the people of Canada. I say that that is a course which should not be permitted. The Grand Trunk Bailway Company of Canada owes the workingmen who were formerly in its employ every cent they should have received in accordance with the terms of the pension fund as it would have existed had there been no strike, and no technicality should be sanctioned by this Government or this Parliament which will permit the Grand' Trunk Bailway Company to escape their responsibility and the people of Canada to be mulcted in an additional payment of money which rightfully is a liability of the company My hon. friend, as a distinguished member of his profession, knows very well that the moment the Board of Arbitrators are asked to consider the question they will say at once that this is a matter of contract which must be dealt with in accordance with principles of law; and that there are in the provinces statutes of limitation which make it impossible to take cognizance of matters of contract after a certain number of years have elapsed. It was ten years ago that the strike took place, and I think that, in Ontario at any rate, after six years have elapsed no court can take' cognizance of any matter of this kind. Now, Sir, there is one court above all others in the land, and that is this court of Parliament, and I say that we at this time have it within our power to do justice to men who have had a great injustice done them for a period

of ten years. A great wrong has been done a large working class in this country, and I for one purpose to exert every bit of my-power as a member of Parliament to see that the wrong is righted.
I have different reason^ for feeling strongly on this matter. In the first place, my name has been introduced into the discussion in a manner which would lead the employees of the Grand Trunk Railway Company to believe that, because while a member of the Government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, I intervened to help in bringing about a settlement of the strike, therefore in some way I was responsible, or at any rate the Government of Sir Wilfrid Lauiier was responsible, for the employees not receiving their pensions under the Grand Trunk Railway scheme. In the House the other afternoon a communication was read, which I shall read again in a moment, and which carries with it its own implication. It is a copy of a letfer which I sent to the leaders of the strike. The letter is dated, Ottawa, August 2, 1910, and reads:
Dear Sir:-Re dispute between Grand Trunk Railway Company and its employees in train anu yard service.
I beg to confirm over my own signature the following wire sent you at a quarter past five this afternoon:-
" Confidential-Mr. Hays has given Sir Frederick Borden and myself an undertaking that the men will within three months from this date, be taken back into service and within that time be placed in their former positions. We understand by the men all the men referred to in the agreement signed by both parties. In accordance with our understanding I shall expect to hear by wire immediately that the strike has been declared at an end. I will confirm this wire by letter over my own signature."
Tours faithfully,
W. L. Mackenzie King,
Minister of Labour.
S. N. Berry, Vice-Pres., O.R.C.
James Murdock, Vice-Pres., B. of R. T.,
Representative of the General Committee, Grand Trunk and Central Vermont,
Grand Union Hotel, Montreal.
Reference to the calendar of that time will show that the communication was sent on a Monday, and reference to the agreement as to the settlement of strike differences discloses that the agreement was dated 31st of July, 1910, which was a Saturday. Now, what was the agreement? I shall read it:
Agreement for settlement of differences dated 31st July, 1910.
Re dispute between the Grand Trunk Railway Company and its employees in train and yard
io-vice.
By way of settlement of existing difficulties:
1.	The company will put back as soon as possible the men other than those who have been or may be found guilty of acts of violence or disorderly conduct, the understanding being that there is to be no coercion or intimidation towards the new men.
2.	The company will put into effect from May 1, 1910, the rates named in schedule of rates dated July 18, 1910, those rates to be embodied in the present schedule now in effect on this line, it being understood that those rates in no instance are a reduction in any existing rates.
3.	The company will, on January 1, 1912, make effective in train and yard service on the Grand Trunk Railway, the rates of pay and the rules contained in the schedule or agreement on that date in effect on the lines of the Canadian Pacific Railway east of Fort William.
The three above propositions shall apply also to the Central Vermont Railroad Company, the said railroad to be substituted for the Grand Trunk Railway, and the Rutland Railroad to be substituted for the Canadian Pacific Railway wherever the same are used or understood in the above. (In the case of the Central Vermont by the "schedule of rates dated July 18, 1910" is meant the schedule issued by the management of that company since July 1.)
Chas. M. Hays, President. Grand Trunk Railway System.
For the O.R.C.:	For the B. of R.T.:
John Maloney,
J. A. Connor,
W. C. Berry,
P. A. Hebert.
A. B. Garretson,
President, O.R.C.
W. G. Lee,
President, B. of R.T. Approved: S. N. Berry, V.P.
Approved : James Murdock, V.P.
Members of the committee will see that the agreement was drafted and signed on Saturday, the 31st of July; that my telegram stating that the men would be reinstated was sent on Monday, August 2nd; that the first clause of the agreement said that the men would be back "as soon as possible," while in my wire I stated that the undertaking was that they would be back "within three months" from that date.
As I explained to the House the other day when we were discussing this question in another connection, we had succeeded, in the course of the adjustment of the difference, in getting all questions in - dispute settled except the question of the time at which the men were to be taken back. The President of the Grand Trunk Railway Company desired to use in the agreement the words which appear there, "as soon as possible." He was unwilling to give any definite period of time; and Sir Frederick Borden, who was at the time Minister of Militia, and myself were in Montreal together and intervened between the company and the employees, helping to bring about
Robert Kelly, N. Foy,
Ed. L. Sinclair, .1. E. Munn.

the agreement between the parties. But what we did in particular that was of significance in the matter was that we insisted on Mr. Hays fixing a definite period instead of the term "as soon as possible," and the reason why the strike could not be settled on the Saturday was our inability to get any definite assurance from him as to precisely what he meant by these words.
Let me recall the circumstances that existed at that time so that the Government and the country will see the significance of the request I am making at the present time. The Grand Trunk Railway system was tied up from Chicago to Portland. The whole of the system in Canada was in such condition that practically not a train was running. I think that some of the passenger trains were kept up, but so far as freight service was concerned traffic was absolutely tied up. There were towns throughout the province of Ontario in which the people were in circumstances almost equal to those that might exist in a state of siege. They could get no food or commodities from other parts, and the whole country was suffering from the effect of the strike. Every day, almost every hour, meant millions of dollars of loss in different directions, and it was all-important that the strike should be brought to a conclusion as quickly as possible. As I have said, everything was settled on the Saturday except the meaning to be attached to the words "as soon as possible," and it was not until Monday that we were able to secure a definition of them, fixing the limitation of three months. It so happened that at the time the strike was on Sir Wilfrid Laurier, then Prime Minister, was in the West. He had with him two or three of his colleagues, and at the moment the strike occurred I happened to be the only Minister of the Government in the city.
That being the case, and having had as Minister of Labour, some extra responsibility thrown on my shoulders in connection with industrial disputes, I took particular care to keep a record from day to day and, as I have mentioned, Sir Wilfrid Laurier being in the West, I took occasion to write him very fully that he might know exactly what had transpired in connection with the negotiations in so far as the Government was concerned. This evening I looked up some former files and I have here a copy of the letter which I sent to Sir Wilfrid Laurier at that time. It details the whole matter of the strike settlement, and I propose, with the permission of the committee, to place the contents of the letter on
[Mr. Mackenzie King !
record, inasmuch as they disclose exactly what took place in the meetings between the employees and the company, exactly what was the attitude of both parties, and exactly what is or should be expected as a result of the settlement. It bears strictly on this question of pensions, because this is a vital feature of the settlement. In the interest of the men, I am desirous of having laid before the Board of Arbitrators the fullest information it can possibly have. I am still more desirous that Parliament shall deal with this matter firmly before it Teaches the Board of Arbitrators, and that it shall deal with it so definitely in connection with this agreement that, so far as the Grand Trunk Railway Company is concerned, there shall be no escape from its doing what it is in duty bound to do.
There is the reason I have mentioned why we should take this position, there is also the shameful attitude which the Grand Trunk railway has assumed towards its employees ever since that dispute took place. In order that I may bring this particular matter to the attention of the public, let me read this one communication to illustrate how arbitrarily, how unfairly, that company has dealt with its employees. Here is a communication, which speaks for itself, from a conductor of the Grand Trunk railway:
Mr. C. Forrester,
Superintendent.
Dear Sir,-I was notified yesterday that I was to be taken out of service on account of not being able to pass eye examination before Inspector Kloyhill, and take the opportunity of making application for pension, as I notice by clause No. Si and 10 in Book of Rules and Regulations of Pension Fund that I am entitled to it, that is if I understand the rules. I have been in continuous service for the company for nearly forty years, and during that time have been in charge of some of the heavy way freight trains, and have been very successful so far as I know in handling same; also think I should have a consideration for length of service, as I am getting well up in years and do not feel able to go out and battle the world over again. Am sixty years of age, and if you can possibly do anything for me along this line would look upon it as a favour.
Hoping to hear from you in respect to this matter, I am
Tours truly,
A. Pennington.
This is the reply which he received:
Stratford, Ont., March 1,9, 1914 Mr. A. Pennington,
(Palmerston, Ont.
Dear Sir,-Referring to your letter of March It in regard to putting you on Pension Fund. Did you .participate in the Trainmen's strike of 1910? If so, I regret to say that you cannot

participate in the benefits of the pension. The fact that you voluntarily left the service at that time and was out of service for two weeks debars you from that privilege, from the fact that any one participating in the pension must claim continuous service, while those who left the service on account of that strike have a broken service.
-	Yours truly,
C. Forrester, Superintendent.
I need not go any further to give the reply made by Mr. Pennington to Mr. Forrester, but what I wish to point out is that the company deliberately construed the circumstance that the men had taken part in the strike as a ground for not permitting them to have the benefits of the pension fund, even though, as in this case, some had suffered bodily injury while working on behalf of the company and had served for forty years. The whole understanding on which the men returned to work, and returned to work in the public interest, as members of this House will appreciate when they hear the correspondence, was that they should be put back in the positions which they had held before. I say that that sort of treatment is unjust and unfair, that it is affecting thousands of men and their families in this country, and that it is the duty of Parliament to act where it sees so great an injustice affecting not only this class of employees but also having a direct bearing upon all the relations between employers and employees as well as a bearing upon the attitude of the Government towards labour, and when it is of such wide and far-reaching significance in relation to the whole industrial problem of our times, to intervene and see that justice is done.
There is a further reason. Not only do the Grand Trunk Company take shelter behind the language of the statute governing the pension fund but they would have the employees of the Grand Trunk believe that because this Parliament gave them that charter they cannot do anything for the employees on the ground that it would be contrary to an Act of Parliament. I want to make it perfectly clear to the Grand Trunk Railway Company that this Parliament is prepared to give them every right and to see that the statute is construed in a broad and generous way and in accordance with the spirit of the settlement. If the Grand Trunk is taking refuge behind any subterfuge and, as hon. gentleman must know, from what I have just read here, they are, we must take care to see that before this matter is disposed of all doubt shall be removed. My hon. friend says that the Government would be ready to assume
this obligation if the Arbitration Board were to pass it on to the Government and not make the Grand Trunk liable. How can my hon. friend say this Government will have anything to do with the Grand Trunk railway at any time from now on? The Government has not such a strong hold upon life that it can ftope to live very much longer, and before the arbitration is concluded we may see the Government out of office. The Government has not the support of the people of the country.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Surely they will be safe in the hands of my hon. friend?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think they would be much safer than they are at the present time, but my hon. friend cannot speak even for hfs successors. He can only speak for himself. I want to put this matter beyond any peradventure, and to insist that this question shall be settled and settled satisfactorily. There is a time and a place for everything. We have come now to the last moment 'in which justice can be done to these men. It can be done by the action of this Parliament while we are dealing with this agreement. To put it off is to open the door to doubt to keep these men in a condition of uncertainty and to keep open this great grievance. Now is the time to close it up as speedily as we can.
Here is a communication which the Grand Trunk has sent to two or three members of the railroad brotherhood:
Montreal, April 8. 1914.
Mr. Sam'l Pugh,
Chairman O.R.C.,
Montreal, Que.
Mr. John Maloney,
Chairman B. of R.T.,
Ottawa, Canada.
Dears Sir:-Replying to your communication of February 2nd.
Under the Rules and Regulations for the establishment and administration of the Grand Trunk Pension Fund in accordance with the powers conferred upon the company by the Act of the Dominion Parliament passed in the year 1907, continuous service for a sufficient period is necessary to entitle an employee to ask that his application for pension be given favourable consideration.
The Rules and Regulations have been formally approved by the directors of this company in accordance with the requirements of the Act, and the committee is not at liberty to depart from or vary them.
Therefore the employees to whom you refer must again qualify by continuous service for a sufficient period from the date when they returned to the service of the company to again become eligible to participate in the privileges under the Pension Fund.
Yours truly,
Howard G. Kelley,
Vice-President.

There, Mr. Chairman, is a distinct statement-


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: What is the date of the letter?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Montreal,
April the 8th, 1914. *There is a distinct statement to the effect that the Parliament of Canada has in some way bound the Grand Trunk Railway Company so that it cannot fulfil the obligations which it is morally-and, I believe, in any true meaning of the word legal, legally bound as well to carry out. I say there is a technicality which they have thus far taken advantage of; and we have no right, in the interest of the working people of this country, in the interest of industrial peace in this country, and in the interest of justice, fair play, and decent treatment, to let this agreement go through and have this thing remain unsettled.
Now, Sir, there is a further reason, and that is that the working men belonging to the different brotherhoods have themselves appealed to the Government to see that justice be done to them in this matter. I share the surprise of an hon. member of this House who, when we were discussing the matter the other day, said he wondered how the Government, when they were drafting this agreement with the Grand TrunkRailway Company, or when they were bringing forward a Bill to give them power to make the agreement, gave no consideration whatever to the representations which had been made by labour. In this connection let me read the representations which the Government had before them at the time the Bill was brought into Parliament at a previous session. There was a meeting of the railroad conductors of America and Canada, held in May, 1919, and a resolution of the Canadian delegates was adopted and forwarded to the Government. Let me read the resolution in full, because it gives' the strongest reasons why, at this time, we should see that this matter is finally and equitably settled:'
Moved by N. Roy, No. 75, seconded by P. Hill, No. 624.
That we, the accredited delegates, representing all railway points in the Dominion, to the 36th session of the Grand Division of the Order of Railway Conductors of America and Canada, resolve as follows, that:-
Whereas in 1907, the Canadian Parliament enacted 6-7 Edward VII, Chap. 89, An Act respecting the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada, empowering the Grand Trunk Railway Company to establish the Pension Fund from its earnings for the beneiit of employees retired from the service on account of old age; and,

Whereas we believe Parliament, though it did not so provide in the Act, surely intended that the said Pension Fund would be administered by the Pension Department of the Railways fairly and without discrimination ; and,
Whereas the said company, through its Pension Department has debarred its employees from the benefits of the said Pension Fund be-"cause they participated in a strike of the Conductors, Brakemen, and Yardmen, on the road in 1910, and,
Whereas, it is well known that the said strike was the result of the unreasonable attitude assumed by its then management, in refusing to grant the employees increased wages and improved working conditions based on the standard wage and conditions on other Canadian railways, and,
Whereas, it is well known that the transportation brotherhoods, including the Order of Railway Conductors, do not strike until all other means of settlement have been exhausted, and.
Whereas, the employees who participated in the strike of 1910 had the sympathy of the citizens generally and especially those citizens located along the said railway, and,
Whereas, the Government then in power affected a settlement, and it was agreed among other things that the employees would return to work and resume their standing in the service and their seniority rights held by them prior to the strike, as though they had been continuously in the service, and,
Whereas, the company has since the said agreement deprived the said employees who have retired from the service on account of the age limit from the benefits of the Pension Fund, alleging that their participation in the strike in 1910, broke their continuity of service with the company, and,
Whereas, many conductors and other train men that had served the company and the public faithfully and continuously up to fifty-three (53) years, and having reached the age limit have been retired from the service, and for the reason above stated debarred from, the pension which they so sorely need on account of the low wages in effect on this road prior to the strike of 1910, and,
Whereas, the accredited representatives of the Order of Railway Conductors and Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen having appealed to the management of the Grand Trunk Railway, and also to its Board of Directors domiciled in England, and its Chairman, Mr. Smithers, for the restoration of the said pensions without success, and in pursuance of the policy of these organizations to exhaust all legitimate efforts to reach a peaceful adjustment of all matters affecting the interests of their membership, therefore be it
Resolved;- that we respectfully petition the Government and Parliament of Canada-
Notice those words. I am reading at the moment a petition from a large body of the workingmen of this country, not only to the Government but to the Parliament of Canada, and I am asking Parliament to hear that peititon.
to use their good offices to the end that the Grand Trunk Railway Company's Pension Department shall recede from its unjust attitude, and that in future it shall administer the Pension Fund of that company fairly and without
f

discrimination, and tljat it shall pay to its employees all arrears of pension due them, and, Whereas, we are advised that our Government is desirous of acquiring the Grand Trunk railway and incorporating it as part of our National Railway system, and is negotiating to that end, therefore, be it further,
Resolved, that we respectfully petition our Government not to conclude said negotiations for the purchase of the said Grand Trunk railway without providing for the protection of the pension interests of the employees concerned, and he it further,
Resolved, that we furnish a copy of these resolutions to the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, and to the following ministers of departments, and members of Parliament, namely:-The Honourable Minister of Railways, J. D. Reid; the Hon. Minister of Labour, G. D. Robertson, and J. E. Armstrong, Esq., M.P., Chairman of the Railway Committee of the House of Commons.
A. D. Fidi.er,	.
Division No. 463, Calgary, Alta., *Chairman, Caucus,
Canadian Delegates.
A. S. Emms,
Division No. 611, Kamloops, B.C., Secretary.
W. V. Hurdon,
Division No. 286, Fort William, Ont. Mr. Chairman, there is a request from the employees of the Grand Trunk Railway system to the Government and to this Parliament that before this matter is concluded, justice be done to them. I repeat again, this is the only time, as far as I can see, when there is still an opportunity to heed that request. The Government thus far have ignored it altogether; they have paid no attention whatever to the demands of the Grand Trunk Railway employees in regard to this pension fund. They have talked fair to them in one way; they have done nothing in the way of action. They have repeated again the other day in the Rouse what they have said to different deputations: "We will urge this;" "we will urge that,"-knowing full well all the time that all their urging does not amount to a snap of the finger. I say, Mr. Chairman, that is no way for a government tol/deal with railway employees. That is the kind of treatment that these men have had to put up with from the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and if the Government themselves have ignored their express wishes in this regard, I, for one, demand that this Parliament hear them. Let me make my position as emphatic as it is possible to make it on this subject. We can now settle th.is question in a satisfactory way. All we have to do is to add to this agreement an amendment, which I shall propose as soon as I have concluded what I have to say, and ihe full rights of these employees will be finally determined and justice done.
Vow' Sir, I -must ask the committee to pardon me if the communication which I am about to read is a somewhat lengthy one but I think hon. gentlemen will find it extremely interesting. I am sure it will be it revelation, not only to the employees of the company-some of whom have been led to believe that others than those who were really blameable were responsible for their not receiving the pension-and I think it will prove a little enlightening to the people cf this country. What I want to have the committee keep in mind as I read this communication is, that when these matters were under negotiation the whole of this country was tied up as a consequence of that strike, and that the attitude of the men and the attitude of the company was every hour affecting the interests of every citizen of this Dominion. The attitude of the Grand Trunk Railway Company was arbitrary and inconsiderate-I cannot use words too strong to express the feelings that I had toward the company in their behaviour at that time.
The action of the men was manly, considerate, with due regard for the interests of the people of this country. Had the action of the men been otherwise, with the action of the company what it was, Heaven alone knows what might have happened in Canada at that time. Our people as a whole are indebted to the working men on the Grand Trunk Railway system for the attitude which they then maintained, and they are indebted to an extent which they will never be able to repay. Low the chance comes to see that these thousands of men and their families who have been deprived of pensions shall have justice done to them. It is up to this Parliament to see that justice is done.
Well, Mr. Chairman, as I said Sir Wilfrid Laurier was in the West and I wa3 part of the time alone in Ottawa-it was in the summer. Mr. Smithers, the president of the company, was, I think, about to go to the West, and as I was anxious that Sir Wilfrid should have full knowledge of the facts so that they could be placed before the president, I wrote very fully, well realizing that a strike of such great proportions would in all probability be of significance for some years to come, and knowing the men I had been dealing with, that out of it there might develop just what has since happened. My letter is dated August 4,1910.1 shall not read the first few pages, which deal with conditions that existed prior to and led up to the strike, but I shall read from the point at which I refer to the intervention of the Gov-

ernment in the matter of settlement of the strike, and that naturally begins with what I cannot avoid as a reference to myself in my duties as Minister of Labour at the time. I wrote:
I was the only minister in the city during one or two days after the strike commenced, and the Immigration Department referred its messages respecting procedure as to strikebreakers, etc., and the Justice Department a telegram as to troops, to me. I took the ground that the law and regulations as laid down should be carried out with strict impartiality, and that no exception to any provision should be made in favour of one side or the other, that neither as to train service or military protection was any department of the Government to take any course other than that which it could justify on the basis of existing legislation. If requests came for troops through civic authorities in accordance with the provisions of the Militia Act well and good, the provisions of the Act should then be followed, otherwise the Dominion was to give no military protection. As to immigration, no exceptions were to be made to meet an emergency one way or other. This course Mr. Blake Robertson, of the Immigration Department, in the absence of Mr. Scott, carried out to my mind in a most efficient manner, so much so. that with the possible exception of the company, the public and all others interested are, I think, prepared to commend his action. Had he wavered, it is difficult to say what serious trouble might not have resulted.
My course in the department was to carefully size uo the situation on the first day. see the extent to which the public were being embarrassed and then to bring about arbitration through force of public opinion, if that were possible. To this end. as you know, I addressed an open communication to each of the parties, and received evasive answers from each. I addressed second communications, insisting on a direct reply, and received an answer no less evasive from the company and one partially evasive from the men. The last named communication indicated a restricted authority, so I communicated again, with a view of getting an answer from a final source. This answer came on Saturday, the 24th, accepting arbitration as offered by the Government, and was immediately communicated to Mr. Hays. Mr. Hays gave no reply until ten o'clock Sunday night, at which hour he answered that the time for arbitration was passed. On Monday I wrote him, expressing the hope that as the one side were agreeable to arbitration, he might come later to express a willingness to do the same, provided this should appear to be in the public interest. All of these communications you have. Their effect, as a consequence of the attitude of the parties which they helped to reveal, was to draw public sympathy away from the company, with which it was pretty strongly at the outset, and to swing it with the men; so much so, that in almost every city and town of the province the boards of trade and the mayors of the several municipalities began passing resolutions and deluging the company with demands to refer the differences to arbitration. The voice of practically the whole press, Liberal and Conservative alike, became one in the same demand, while business concerns whose interests were suffering, and such organizations as wholesale grocers, the retail grocers. Canners* Association and the like, addressed resolutions

in unmistakable terms to the company. Not only was the demand the same, but the position also.-the Government of the country had called upon the two parties to arbitrate, the Government represented the people,-one of the parties had responded and it was the business of the other to do the same.
Had Mr. Hays really desired arbitration he had reason enough, if ever man had reason, to grant it at that time. The value of the company's securities were daily depreciating in England and abroad; the company's system was paralyzed; its losses occasioned through the crippling of its business was mounting up to the million dollar mark and over; whilst its additional expenses in seeking to man the trains with strike-breakers and re-commenee opera-aions in the midst of a struggle were only adding to the burden. From the financial point of view it was to the company's interests to settle; the people of the country wanted the strike ended, and the Government wanted it ended, but to all this pressure, and to public opinion in general, Mr. Hays remained wholly indifferent. This was the situation on Monday and Tuesday, a condition which intensified during the whole week.	[DOT]
On Tuesday we had a meeting of Council, at which I outlined what had taken place, and suggested that Sir Richard, as Acting Premier, should send some communication to Mr. Hays from the Government as a whole, this communication to be confidential. As the company was issuing statements from time to time to the effect that it was rapidly resuming operations on its lines, Sir Richard thought it would be well before taking a further step to get definite information on this source. Accordingly, we arranged with McDougald, of the Customs Department, to send a wire to the Collector of Customs in each town and city in the province, requested a wired reply, stating briefly the extent to which the strike was affecting business. Practically without exception the answers came in on the following morning from all parts of the province to the effect that on the whole of the Grand Trunk system not a freight car had moved in or out of the several towns from the time the strike had commenced up to the time of wiring. But what was worse than that, factories and mills were cldsing down in many places because raw materials could not be brought in or finished products sent out. It was also mentioned that shippers were being advised that the Grand Trunk could do nothing for some time. The C.P.R. and the other railways, where they were paralleling the Grand Trunk, had their facilities overtaxed and were not proving equal to the extra work put upon them. Customs receipts had fallen off considerably.
With this information before Council, on the following morning it was decided that a letter should be sent to Mr. Hays, and as Sir Frederick Borden was leaving the same evening for Nova Scotia, it was agreed that Sir Frederick would take the communication with him and see Mr. Hays personally, impressing upon him the seriousness of the situation from the point of view of both the Government and the country. I attach a copy of the letter, signed by Sir Richard, which, with some 40 enclosures, was the one taken by Sir Frederick to Mr. Hays.
Whilst we did what we could to bring pressure to bear on Mr. Hays in this direction, I had a feeling that a first-hand contact with the situation would prove ultimately the only means of dealing with it effectively. I did not like,

on top of the communications I had been sending to the parties to rush in without a request, though I felt that if Mr. Hays did not yield to arbitration on the strength of the letter from the Cabinet, the public were strongly enough at my back to permit of my going down to Montreal and sizing up the situation with a view of giving the public a clear-cut statement as to who was in the right and who was in the wrong. To strengthen my position as much as possible I arranged by letting them know of my willingness to do so, to have a communication sent me by the men asking my personal intervention. Sir Frederick left on the six o'clock train on Wednesday. At midnight on the same day a message came from the leader of the men in the following words:
" May I be permitted on behalf of the men on strike to request that as a minister of the Crown and representative of the people you come to Montreal and by further effort try and arrange an honourable settlement either by arbitration or negotiation."
As Sir Frederick Borden had taken a communication to Mr. Hays I requested the men over the long distance telephone to keep their communication to me confidential. I was fearful lest knowing I had been requested to come by the men, it might embarrass Sir Frederick in his endeavours with Mr. Hays. I promised I would go down but asked that nothing should be said as to why I was going or at whose instance. I got into communication with Sir Frederick and asked him to wait over a day with me, hoping that Sir Frederick with Mr. Hays and I with the men, we might together assist negotiations to the extent of getting a settlement.
I left Ottawa on Thursday afternoon. Sir Frederick met me at the Windsor station, and we dined quietly together. Sir Frederick said he had found Mr. Hays very pleasant, and that we would have little difficulty in arranging a settlement. He had arranged for our meeting Mr. Hays together at his house later in the evening, and at ten o'clock we drove to Mr. Hay's residence and had a talk with him and Mr. Fitzhugh on his verandah from ten until after midnight. In the course of this conversation the whole situation was carefully reviewed, the respective positions of the parties fully gone into and explained, and we left on the understanding that Mr. Hays was quite ready for a settlement to be negotiated, if Sir Frederick Borden and I could succeed in bringing it about.
I left Sir Frederick .at the Windsor shortly after half past twelve and myself drove on to the Grand Union Hotel, the headquarters of the Canadian leaders. I had had my secretary inform them earlier in the evening that I was having a talk with Mr. Hays and would be along and see them when it was concluded. 1 found them waiting and we had a conversation of an hour or two. It was agreed that they were to come to my room at the hotel on the following morning and we would consider what propositions it would be possible to submit to Mr. Hays. In the meantime, as Mr. Hays had expressed the opinion that no final settlement could be made without the presidents of the two orders, who happened to be in Toronto, it was arranged that they should be sent for, so that they could be on hand for final negotiations. This was the point we had reached by three o'clock Friday morning.
Friday, July 29 :	At ten o'clock on Friday [DOT]
morning the full committee of the men assembled in my room at the hotel. The whole situation was carefully gone over, and I was given authority to say to Mr. Hays that in the event of his agreeing to reinstate all the men, excepting those who had been guilty of violations of law or destruction of the company's property, the men were prepared to accept any of the following alternatives:-
(a) To leave all matters in dispute to arbitration, or (b) to accept the award of the Board of Conciliation and Investigation in toto, and where there might be any doubt as to the meaning of a particular clause to leave it to the chairman of the board to say what the meaning was.
Since the board's award had not been fixed the date at which the standardization of rates was to become effective, the men were prepared to either:-
(a) leave the question of the fixing of the date open for future negotiation; or (b) leave this question to arbitration and abide by the result; or (c) to consider arranging some satisfactory basis of settlement of this date by negotiation.
I was authorized to say that on the acceptance of any of these alternatives, with the understanding that what was accepted in th.3 case of the Grand Trunk would also be accepted in the case of the Central Vermont, which is considered a part of the company's system, the men were prepared to return to work immediately; or if Mr. Hays preferred to have the difficulties settled by negotiation in the first instance and before the strike was declared at an end they were ready to commence negotiations at once.
During the afternoon I called) on Mr. Hays at his office and had a long talk with himself, Mr. Fitzhugh and Mr. Biggar. Mr. Hays did not express either approval or disapproval of any of the alternatives, but asked me if I would leave him a copy of them. I did so on the understanding that it was not to be considered an offer from the men to him, but rather a proposal from myself to each of the parties as being the basis on which I believed a settlement could be immediately effected. His unwillingness to give any immediate decision was put down to the circumstance that Mr. Gar-retson, the President of the Order of Railroad Conductors, and Mr. Lee, President of the Order of Railroad Trainmen, would have to pass on any decision which was ultimately come to, and he thought it would therefore be better that proposals should come with their sanction before he gave them final consideration. I told him that Messrs. Garretson and Lee had been sent for, and asked if I might arrange for a meeting between himself and them to consider the several propositions. He agreed to this, it being understood that I would meet with Mr. Garretson and Lee and the committee again on the following Saturday morning, see him later, let him know what they were prepared to do and that a joint conference would then take place in the Board Rooms of the Grand Trunk Railway on Saturday afternoon. This concluded the first day's negotiations, and Sir Frederick, at my request, very generously remained over to be present on Saturday along with myself during the course of negotiations.
Saturday, July 30:	On Saturday morning
Messrs. Garretson and Lee, who had come in the interval from Toronto, together with other members of the committee, called at my room at 9.30. They endorsed the stand taken by the

Canadian members of the committee and authorized me to lay before Mr. Hays as from the men the several alternatives suggested on the day previous and to say that the acceptance of any one of them would be agreeable as a basis of settlement. After this interview, I asked Sir Frederick to come with me to Mr. Hays' office. We were met by Mr. Hays, Mr. Fitz-hugh, Mr. Biggar and Mr. Wainwright. Mr. Hays began discussing with me the alternative proposals of the men, raising many objections. His endeavour during this interview was to have me commit myself on the different points but I was careful not to do so, though I did not hesitate to give him frankly my opinion as to the merits of any points he might raise.
As to the reinstatement of the men, he professed from the obtset to be willing to take them all back, with the exception of a few who might have been disorderly. Sir Frederick and I both took the stand as-*we were working now for a settlement in the public interest, that it was just as well that bygones should be bygones, and no discrimination made, except in the cases mentioned, because of men having gone out on strike. We had not been discussing very long before it became quite apparent that it was not a way out, but objections, that the company was seeking to raise. I took the position that I was not there to argue for one side or the other, but to assist the two to come together, and failing that to let the public know the reason why they were unable to do so. Mr. Hays seemed anxious that I should return with a counter-proposition to the men, and keep on going back and forth between them. I felt instinctively that his motive in this was not genuine, but that it was, if possible, to draw me into a position where he would find some means of escape by claiming that I had failed in making clear some understanding, or had misrepresented some situation, and I therefore demurred a little to this request, pointing out that I had already told the men that in accordance with the arrangement reached the day previous that they would be asked to come to a joint conference in the afternoon, and had got them to make the offer of the alternatives which I was presenting on that understanding.
We got our first true light on the situation when the question of the Central Vermont was raised. I pointed out that as all was considered part of the one system and the men had gone out simultaneously on both roads, they were standing together for a settlement of both at the same time. Mr. Fitzhugh thereupon broke into the conversation and said that when the Grand Trunk dispute had been before the Board of Conciliation in Toronto, the Chairman, Mr. Atkinson, had refused to consider the Central Vermont in connection with it. I said if this were so I would take the position that we, as members of the Government, were not concerned with the Central Vermont. I then turned to Mr. Fitzhugh and asked if he would be willing to leave it to Mr. Atkinson to say just whether the Central Vermont had been included or not. Mr. Fitzhugh replied: "No, I would not." After this reply' of Mr. Fitzhugh I appealed to Mr. Hays, Mr. Biggar, Mr. Wainwright and Sir Frederick as to whether they believed it was possible for any progress to be made with negotiations if we were to deal with each other in that fashion. I felt considerably annoyed, and could not help showing it, whereupon Mr. Biggar began to apologize for Mr. Fitzhugh, and say I could not have understood his meaning. Mr. Fitzhugh added that he had not intended to say anything offensive, that I must have mls-

understood him. I replied that I hoped this was so, and to prevent any misunderstanding I would repeat the questions. I then asked him if I were right in understanding that he had said that at the time the Grand Trunk dispute was before the Board in Toronto, Mr. Atkinson, the Chairman, had refused to consider the Central Vermont in connection with it. To this he replied, yes, that I was quite right. I then said that in the event of that being so, Sir Frederick and I would take the position that the attitude taken by Mr. Atkinson should bind us also. (I did not know at the time of speaking what attitude Mr. Atkinson had taken). I then said: "Assuming that this point should be controverted, would you, Mr. Fitzhugh, after having said that Mr. Atkinson ruled out the Central Vermont, be willing to leave it to Mr. Atkinson to say what he had done provided that we agree to follow his course and abide by his decision?" To this Mr. Fitzhugh replied that he did not think he should be asked to answer this question. I mention this instance because it is only one of a very large number, of which both Sir Frederick and I could tell you, of a not disimilar kind. From this on through the whole negotiations it seemed absolutely impossible to hold either Mr. Fitzhugh or Mr. Hays to any statements that they made. After Mr. Fitzhugh had taken the position he did, I said to Mr. Hays that it did not seem to me any good purpose could be served by our attempting negotiations, and was about to withdraw when Mr. Hays suggested we should all go to lunch. He invited Sir Frederick and myself, but we explained that it would hardly do for us to accept his invitation, and we went to the Windsor together. Mr. Biggar followed us to the elevator trying to apologize for Mr. Fitzhugh. I toldl Mr. Biggar he might tell Mr. Fitzhugh that he should remember he was speaking to responsible ministers of the Crown, that he must be responsible for the words he used, that I had hardly expected to see him put his company in the position he had, and that if the Central Vermont were to be the stumbling block in the settlement negotiations because of the stand he had taken, I for my part, would take good care to see that the public were fully informed of the cause.
When Sir Frederick and I returned after lunch, Mr. Hays and the other gentlemen were in the Board Room. I had Sir Frederick see Mr. Hays before I went up an explained to him that there was no use to try any bluff on me one way or the other, that I was there to do a piece of work and meant to see that it was done to the satisfaction of the public, that I would go any length in assisting him to get a settle-men which would be satisfactory to him, and be as considerate of fys position in the eyes of the public as possible, but that in this matter there was a big public duty to be discharged and it would have to be regarded in that light. When I came to the [DOT] Board Room, Mr. Hays took the position that I should go and see the men and take counter-propositions from him, that we should carry the negotiations over Sunday and perhaps reach a settlement during the coming week. I took the position that this strike was seriously affecting the public and that every hour was important, that it was not my business or purpose to act as an intermediary except in a way that was likely to secure results, that as the two parties would have to come face to face at some time in the proceedings they might as well do so at once. Sir Frederick also intimated that he was desirous of leaving on the following morning, and that

it would be quite impossible for him to stay over longer. By holding firm to this position Mr. Hays finally agreed that we should send for the men. The committee was on hand within half an hour. Negotiations then commenced between Mr. Hays and Messrs. Gar-retson and Lee, and we were favoured with about as interesting an afternoon's discussion as I think either of us has ever been privileged to listen to. Sir Frederick had gone down to Montreal with feelings very strong against the men. He told me that he had seldom been more impressed by the closeness and fairness in reasoning than he had been in listening to Messrs. Garretson and Lee. In every argument, he said, the men had the better of the company.
At the joint conference Mr. Hays submitted amendments in reply to the proposals which the men had made. They were base, so far as the rates of pay were concerned, on the award of the board, but left out altogether the question of rules, and the men made it apparent that any settlement would have to include rules at some time, though they were prepared to consider what time this part, of the award should go into effect. To make a long story short, we had. by half-past seven on Saturday night, reduced all the points at difference down to three simple propositions, the first relating to the putting back of the men "as soon as'possible" ; the second to the conditions to become effective at the present time and the third as to the date at which the standardization of rules as well as rates was to go into effect. In consideration of Mr. Hays moving the standardization of rates from January 1, 1913, the date he gave out at the time of the strike as that at which he would put into effect the standardization of rates, to January 1, 1912, the men agreed to forego the standardization of rules, (the main point in which was the payment on a mileage instead of on a per diem or monthly basis) from the present time, as awarded in the board's report, until the date at which the rates of pay were also to be standardized. Then, instead of accepting the rates of pay as set forth in the award of the board at present the men agreed to accept the rates as given out by Mr. Hays since the strike commenced, provided that in no case these rates were to be made lower than the rates existing prior to the strike. Everything, in other words, was settled, except the meaning of the words "as soon as possible." The men held out for an immediate reinstatement. Mr. Hays held out for reinstatement "as soon as possible" without giving any definitness to these words, though professing openly that he meant by them to take all men back, and practically all almost immediately. Mr. Hays refused to yield an inch on this ground, and told the men they might do as they pleased, that was as far as he would go. He then left the room with the other officers of the company. I asked the men to remain with Sir Frederick and myself. "When we were alone I said to them that I would like to speak very plainly, that I thought they had made a mistake in not agreeing to arbitration at the very outset, that in this they had not been true to the principles which their brotherhoods had always professed, that I was willing to grant that there might have been grounds for doubt as to the bona tides of any offer, but it was their business to have accepted it and to have looked to the Government to see that it was made good ; that as they had struck without arbitrating Mr. Hays had been forced to take on some 86
men to fill their places, it was only reasonable that they should allow him some time to get rid of strike-breakers he had employed, and to maintain the position which the business community generally would expect him to maintain ; that the words "as soon as possible" saved him in the eyes of the public, on the other hand, it was only reasonable that he should give these words some definiteness of meaning to all of us present. Having anticipated this very difficulty at the start, I had taken care when with the Canadian Committee at the first interview, to thresh out this point with them, and I got from one of the leaders in his own handwriting a statement which he thought would cover the ground, the men having met me at that time by agreeing to the use of the words "as soon as possible" provided it could be understood that they did not mean a time longer than thirty days.


Mr. CROTHERS:: Was it not ninety days?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Thirty days in this case. This was the preliminary statement handed to me by one of the leaders. They were agreeable to thirty days; afterwards we had to change it to ninety days.
This statement I took out of my pocket and showed to Messrs. Garretson and Lee. I mentioned that in speaking to Mr. Hays I had felt justified in virtue of it. in saying that I thought thirty days should be allowed him to get rid of men who had been taken on as strike-breakers, that he knew I was committed to this extent and that under the circumstances I thought they could waive immediate reinstatement and allow thirty days. At once they said they would be wholly agreeable to this, that if Mr. Hays would give his word to Sir Frederick and myself that by "as soon as possible" he meant not longer than thirty days, the strike might be declared at an end on the basis of settlement which had been reached up to that time.
When we got back to the company's offices at nine o'clock I saw Mr. Hays personally and tried to persuade him in the interests of all concerned, to allow the first clause to go on the thirty days understanding, pointing out that as president of a company where such vast interests were concerned it would not do for him to let the wish of subordinate officials govern in a matter of this kind. It was perfectly clear in my own mind that a longer period was desired by some men only for the purpose of carrying out threats they had made that if the men once went out some of them would never get back again. He asked me to come in and talk over this phase with Mr. Fitzhugh, Mr. Biggar and Mr. Wainwright. This Sir Frederick and I did, each of us strongly taking the position that a settlement should be reached on this understanding. We left him for a short time and he then came up to the Board Room with his other officers. The different points were gone over pro and con. We were agreed on everything except the words "as soon as possible," Mr. Hays repeating this over again, that we had got down now to a point where only three words "soon as possible" were keeping us apart. The men conceded the thirty days to meet him on this. He went over each statement carefully, saying that he wanted to make sure that he had them quite correct, and then left the room, as we all supposed, to draft a final agreement. He came back with a let-



ter addressed to Messrs. Garretson and Lee containing three propositions, at the end of which he had written, "We understand that the foregoing propositions are practically what you have accepted, with the exception of No. 1, which you think should be in the following form." He then set out the clause the men had suggested as to reinstatement and added that if they insisted upon their form of dealing with that portion of the difficulty he would agree to arbitrate as to which form of No. 1 should be adopted, his or theirs, the Board of Arbitration to consist of one arbitrator named by each of the parties and the third nominated by the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of Quebec.
When we examined the letter Mr. Hays had written it turned out that not a single one of the propositions was what we had all understood had been the position reached. Instead of May 1 being mentioned as the date at which, new rates of wages were to come into effect, July 18 was fixed as the date. It had been agreed that C.P.R. rules as well as rates were to go into effect from January 1912, but his new draft did not mention C.P.R. rules, but made reference to rules in the award, with a clause that they might be subject to modifications to be mutually agreed on between the company and committees representing the men. These changes which completely altered the whole agreement as it had been come to ten-atively were pointed out to Mr. Hays. He admitted one mistake after the other, saying that clearly there was an error. Notwithstanding that every one felt more or less shocked or exasperated, we got over this difficulty and back again to where we were before he took the proposals down-stairs. There was left then only the first clause and the three words.
Sir Frederick by this time had become pretty well tired of Mr. Hays' methods of negotiating and began himself to put one or two questions to Mr. Hays, asking him to name some time- any time-a year or more, as long as it was definite, within which he would agree to take back the men, but he could get no answer from him one way or the other. The men said as to arbitrating between the two propositions they were willing to leave them to either Sir Frederick or myself to say what was a reasonable time, that they would not bind us to thirty days, but leave us to name any period we thought suitable, but this Mr. Hays would hot agree to. Finally, after some pretty sharp words between Mr. Hays and the men and some very pointed questions from Sir Frederick, Mr. Hays got up in a very excited condition and went away, telling us we could do what we liked. Before he left, the men turned to him and said, "Mr. Hays^ if you are unwilling to complete a settlement with us at the present time, here is out last proposition: It is to leave this whole matter to a board of Arbitration, the arbitrators to be named, not by ourselves or by you, but by either Sir Frederick Borden, Mackenzie King, Sir Thomas Shaughnessy or Sir Wilfrid Laurier. We will take any board named by any one of these gentlemen, and we will leave it to you to say which one you wish to name the board, or we will agree to a Board of Arbitrators chosen in any other way that is fair."
You may know what a pass matters had come to when both Mr. Biggar and Mr. Wain-wright came to Sir Frederick and myself and begged of us not to judge him too hastily. I then got hold of the men and asked them not

to declare negotiations at an end; the following day was Sunday and to let us have one more try on the next day. Their reply was "Mr. King, we were through, but as you have asked us, we wish to close no door, we will wait just as long as you say." It was now after midnight, and Mr. Biggar, Sir Frederick, Mr. Wainwright and myself drove up to the Mount Royal Club where we talked the situation over for another hour and a half. Both Mr. Wainwright and Mr. Biggar offered to help us all they could. It was agreed before we left that they should see Mr. Hays in the morning and we should see him in the afternoon and see if we could not come a little closer together.
Sunday, July 31.-It was nearly three when Sir Frederick and I turned in Sunday morning. We breakfasted together after a sort of night's rest and after breakfast I drew up in the form of an agreement what he and I, listening to the negotiations, believed and knew to be the several propositions tenatively agreed to. W6 decided that we would lay this proposed agreement before each of the parties and give them each a chance to sign. In this way we could test the bona tides of each beyond question. Moreover, in order that Mr. Hays should be afforded no reasonable excuse for hesitating to make an immediate settlement, we decided that we would place as interpretation of the words "as soon as possible" a period not exceeding three months, instead of thirty days, as giving ample time to reinstate all the men, and also affording some measure of punishment to those who may have been offenders in mild ways. Mr. Wainwright and Mr. Biggar came to our rooms about noon, and wTe read over to them the terms of this proposed agreement They agreed with us that the several propositions it contained were those tenatively agreed to by the parties on the night previous, and they thought they should prove acceptable to Mr. Hays. It was then arranged that they would see him before three and that we would meet him about half past three.
In accordance with this arrangement we arrived at Mr. Hay's house at half past three. He invited us into his billiard room with Mr. Biggar and Mr. Wainwright. They had arranged to keep Mr. Fitzhugh away, so as not to embarrass the situation. We opened out by mentioning that we had all been tired the night before and that in this state of mind things had become a little confused, and that to clear matters up we had written out what we thought had been the points reached by the two parties. I had had about ten of these statements prepared, it being my intention to have copies ready to hand around should there be several of us considering them at the same time. I went over each proposition and each was agreed to in turn by Mr. Hays. WTien we had concluded the document we were all agreed that it contained the tenative arrangement, and that if we could find a satisfactory solution of the words "as soon as possible" the strike would be ended. Sir Frederick and I then said that we thought instead of thirty days, if three months were named, that ought to meet the situation. It would give ample time to find places for men at present employed. Mr. Wainwright and even Mr. Hays also agreed that there would probably be only a very few that the company would wish to keep. When we thought Mr. Hays was about to sign he suddenly turned to us and said, "Well gentlemen, where do you come in on this? I give my note for three months, it falls due and the

obligation is wholly upon me; where do you come in?" Sir Frederick replied that we became the endorsers. We had a little laugh over this and thought Mr. Hays was only joking, but he went on to speak of different things, what hard luck the road had had in different directions, of the need of reduction of coal duties, of increased allowance for carriage of mails, etc., etc. We told him that of course we could not speak for the Cabinet, that we were only two members, but that we would certainly be only too pleased to represent to our colleagues anything he might do to help out the present situation. We thought they would not be lacking in good-will toward him for anything he might do. He then said he thought if we wanted him to take back any of the men we should agree to take any men who had been taken on since the strike and whom he might not be able to find positions for or get rid of at the end of the three months. He said he supposed work could be found for them on the I.C.R. or if not on the I.C.R. provision might be made in some other way.
I happened to know that all of the men who have been taken on have been engaged by the month, and that he is under no real obligation to them, and I felt that he was only bluffing for some reason of his own, and when Sir Frederick asked me what 1 thought of it, I said that it seemed to me very reasonable that Mr. Hays should make such a request, that in fact it showed his good faith in the promise he was giving to reinstate all of the men. We were asking him to take back every one; he said he had obligations to some whom he had taken on since the strike commenced ; we therefore, I thought, should be prepared to meet him at this point, provided the obligation were not likely to be serious, as he himself had stated. Sir Frederick said he held the same view, and then used words to this effect: "Now let us see what is the extent of the obligation we are assuming; we agree that if there are any men who have been taken on since the strike and whom Mr. Hays may have still in his employ at the end of three months and is unable to find positions for, the Government should relieve him to the extent of undertaking to find some suitable employment, either on some of the railways in the Dominion or in some other way." After Sir Frederick and I had each carefully stated our obligation and asked if this were right, and it was so admitted by Mr. Hays, he said, very well, that he would sign the agreement on that understanding. He then took the nine or ten copies of the agreement which I had drawn up, went to another room and returned with all of them duly signed.
He had said before leaving that I could, perhaps, when I got back to the hotel or later on, send him a little memo of the obligation on each side. I had felt instinctively that there was something to be watched in this, and therefore decided to write out the memo on the spot, and while Mr. Hays was away signing I drafted out what we had understood was the nature of the obligation. The draft which 1 then prepared and which I read over in an unfinished form to all present was as follows; (Of.course it was understood that any arrangement made in this connection was to be entirely confidential, as was also the interpretation to be put on the words "as soon as possible" so far as the public was concerned. Sir Frederick and I were only to give our word to the men that Mr. Hays had given this assurance to us) :
86J
By the way, may I say here in parenthesis, lest it should appear that I am communicating any matter which it was decided at the time should be confidential, that I repeated over and over again to Mr. Hays, during the negotiations, that one of the reasons why I desired him to settle was that there would be no necessity for making public the extraordinary record which I am giving to this House at the present moment. I told him that if, when a settlement was made, he did not carry it out he might expect the whole transaction from beginning to end to be made public.
"Re settlement of dispute between G.T.R. Company and employees in train and yard service.
"Confidential.
"Dear Mr. Hays:
As hon. members will remember there were none of these men in the employ of the company at the end of three months because the strike breakers were employed only for a month, and we knew at the time we were negotiating that there would be no obligation towards any of them because the strike would be over. We were not taking on any liability for the Government but we simply included this in the draft.
"With regard to the agreement signed by yourself to-day as a means of settling existing differences and our conversation in reference thereto, we understand that you undertake to reinstate within three months in their former positions in the company's service, all of the men involved in the present strike. We have your statement that since the strike commenced you have taken on a number of new men, any of whom still in your employ three months hence you will be under obligation, to provide for. It is apparent to us that the present strike cannot be terminated unless you give the above undertaking. We realise that its continuance even for a day, to say nothing of an indefinite period, will mean heavy financial, not to speak of other forms of loss to individuals in all parts of the Dominion, as well as serious injury to industrial and. commercial conditions in Canada and without his knowledge we feel we would fail in our obligation to the people of Canada, whose trustees we are in this matter if we allowed the possibility of your being unable to provide for all such employees to prevent a settlement. We therefore undertake, in order to prevent such a contingency, that the Government of Canada at the end of three months will relieve you of such obligation as you may still have in this respect, by providing in a fair and equitable manner for any men who have joined the Company's service since the strike commenced and who may be still in your employ and for whom you are unable to make further provision, etc., etc."
When I had read over this draft Mr. Hays said he did not like the word "reinstate" and I asked him what he would suggest instead, and he said "take back." I said very well, it would read then, "undertake to take back' in their former positions in the Company's service."
/

viz., the restoration of full service on the Grand Trunk Railway with every consideration possible to the men who went out on strike, and while we are not entirely in accord with you in the meaning you attach to the clauses quoted, where room exists for a different opinion, there should be no difficulty in arriving at some mutually satisfactory settlement, should occasion make necessary, and with this understanding your proposition is accepted.
"Tours truly,
"Chas. M. Hats,
"President."
When shown this letter, I gave the one obvious reply, that it meant nothing, and if accepted by Sir Frederick Borden and myself as giving the assurance required would only lay us open to having taken as an assurance what was not such in fact. Thereupon Mr. Biggar and Mr. Wainwright explained that Mr. Hays had nothing of the kind in mind, that as a matter of fact he had arranged that if this letter were not satisfactory and left any room for doubt, Biggar, Wainwright and myself were to come to some understanding as to the interpretation to be put upon its words,-the understanding to be embodied in the memorandum to be attached to the letter, this memorandum to be signed by Mr. Hays and myself. I said immediately a satisfactory memorandum could be drawn up that would be wholly agreeable and we began to discuss its terms. Mr. Biggar presented me with a typewritten memorandum which he thought would meet the case. The memorandum as presented was anything but satisfactory. The first clause read as follows:
"The men shall within three months from this date, be taken back into service and within that time be placed in their former positions. This, however, is not to require the removal from any of such positions, of men who were in the company's service prior to the strike ; the intention being that those formerly occupying such positions shall get them back from time to time as vacancies occur."
I pointed out that the second sentence of this paragraph nullified the first; that unless all of the positions spoken of in the second sentence became vacant before end of three months it would become impossible to carry out the undertaking in the first sentence, which was the essence of the whole situation. Mr. Biggar and Mr. Wainwright admitted this and struck out the second sentence. They then' asked me whether I thought the Government would undertake to look after the men who had been taken on the company's lines west of Detroit, between Detroit and Chicago, and east of Montreal, between Montreal and Portland. I replied that we could hardly be expected to do that, that I thought that by undertaking to look after such men as might be left in the Company's employ in Canada, we were going about as far as it would be possible for the Government to go. They were also of that opinion, and having drafted a memorandum on these lines, they took what wa's acceptable to me, and what I think they believed to he fair and in accordance with Sir Frederick's undertaking and my own, to Mr. Hays. They were absent about an hour, and then came back with a memorandum, the first sentence of which, instead of reading-
"The men will, within three months from this date, be taken back into service and within that tin" he placed In their former positions-'>. read-

"The men formerly in the company's train and yard service in Canada will within three months from this date be taken back into service and within that time be placed in their former positions."
I saw at once that here again was a new device to enable Mr. Hays to carry out one of only two possible intentions in his mind, either to have no settlement at all, or to settle only on the basis of not taking back all the men, which he knew very well was the only basis on which a settlement could be reached, except by a strike which might last for several months. I pointed this out to Mr. Biggar and Mr. Wainwright. They replied that they did not think such was in Mr. Hays' mind, that he had said, if we were limiting our obligation to Canada, he should limit his obligation to Canada also, and that for this reason he felt the memorandum was absolutely fair. Besides he did not see why as Canadian Ministers, we were concerned with the Tankee end of the situation.
Knowing that Mr. Hays had been unwilling to negotiate a settlement until Messrs. Garretson and Lee as presidents of the organizations were on hand, in order that whatever was come to might be binding on all; knowing too, that the question of who were included in the word "men" or "all men" had never once been raised in the whole discussion, either with me privately or in negotiations with the men or in anything that occurred during the time that Sir Frederick was present; knowing that the one and only pretext up to that time had been the difficulty of finding an interpretation to the words "as soon as possible" which related to time and not to nationality; knowing further that by a deliberately false manceuvre this ground had been shifted by Mr. Hays away from the question of time to the class of men to be cared for by the Government (i.e. those of the strikers who might fail of reinstatement instead of those of the men engaged since the strike who might still be in the Company's employ at the end of three months) ; knowing that in the letter sent to Sir Frederick Borden and myself in reply, another evasion of the whole question had been sought, with the deliberate intention to have the Government shoulder responsibilities which might place It before the whole labour world as having Intrigued with a corporation to gain a certain and,-I could not help feeling how fraught with truth were the words that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
I left Mr. Biggar and Mr. Wainwright and returned to the hotel. They thought I had gone to see how this proposition would appeal to the men, they had said Mr. Hays wished me to put it to the men, and if they would not accept it, that would he their own lookout. Sir Frederick and I as Ministers would have done our duty, and the Canadian public would be well satisfied at our having taken the stand which we had taken, and that public opinion would strongly back Mr. Hays in his patriotic endeavours.
When I reached my room I drafted two letters, one to Messrs. Murdock and Berry the Canadian leaders. It was a draft based on the assumption that I could get from Mr. Hays all that had been asked in reference to Canada, and concluded with the request that they would advise me whether or not this would be acceptable to the men whom they represented. The other letter was a letter to Mr. Hays in reply to his letter to Sir Frederick and myself, briefly mentioning that there should be little difficulty in our arriving at an under-

standing as to what was meant by the words on which he placed a different interpretation than our own and ending with- a request that he inform me wherein his interpretation differed from ours. I called the committee to my room and read over to them the draft letter which I had addressed to Messrs. Berry and Murdock. I said that I was not submitting that letter to them, that I had not received from Mr. Hays the undertaking therein expressed, but that I would like to know whether if such an undertaking could be received and were such a letter sent by me to them, would the strike be ended. They replied that I knew as well as they did that it would not, that for them as Canadians to agree for themselves alone to what had been gained for them through their fellow workers all over the system would be to play the part of traitors to their fellowmen. My answer to them was that as Canadians I would be mistaken in them if I thought they would take any other stand, and that as men I would be ashamed of them. I asked them, however, if they saw into what position the whole strike would be brought if such a communication should be sent and an answer demanded from them. I pointed out that they could not blame Sir Frederick and myself if Mr. Hays put this proposition up to us, as I was afraid he might do, and demanded of us to pass it along; that we should then be obliged to write a communication such as I had written to them. They admitted this was so. I told them that was all I wanted; it was not my intention to allow them to be put in this position before the public of Canada. On the other hand, I was anxious that they should know just how far the Government of Canada was standing by them in an endeavour to see fair play and to get justice in the present situation. They replied to me: "Mr. King, whatever you do, whatever you ask, or whatever you say, we will approve of your course."
I then returned to Mr. Wainwright's office. When he got hold of Mr. Biggar they asked me how the men had taken the proposition. I replied to them that I had made no proposition to the men, that so far as the men were concerned I was through with them; I had their signatures to a document on a certain understanding which they were prepared to stand by; that I had no reason to doubt their faith in the obligation they had assumed, and that the only thing which was now preventing a settlement and which had prevented a settlement from Saturday night up to that time, was to my mind the mala fides of Mr. Hays ; that I was prepared to be still undeceived as to this, but' I hoped they remembered, and as advisers of Mr. Hays would see that he thoroughly understood, that every step in the endeavour to find the light in this situation might some day be publicly disclosed. I then asked if I was right in understanding the letter given me. in the morning over Mr. Hays' signature as replying to Sir Frederick's and my own, and was informed, "yes." I then drew from my pocket the following letter, and said, "Give this to Mr. Hays as my further reply to him:
"Montreal, August 1, 1910.
"Dear Sir: -I have your letter of to-day acknowledging the receipt of the letter of July 31 from Sir Frederick Borden and myself, and note that you say that you are not entirely in accord with Sir Frederick and myself as to the meaning we attached to the clauses quoted. AVe have given you the meaning and the only
meaning it has seemed possible for us to place upon the clause in question. However, if room exists for a different opinion, I agree that there should be no difficulty in arriving at some mutually satisfactory settlement. Perhaps you will kindly inform me wherein the meaning you attach to the clause quoted is not in accord with Sir Frederick's and mine, or what is the meaning you attach to this clause.
"Yours faithfully,
"W. L. Mackenzie King,
"Minister of Labour." "Chas. M. Hays, Esq.,
"President, Grand Trunk Railway System,
"Montreal."
When Mr. Biggar and Mr. Wainwright received this letter they were in a state of consternation. They each admitted frankly to me that Mr. Hays was a man that nothing could be done with, and they saw no possibility of a termination of the strike. We spent an hour talking over the position, trying, the three of us together, to find some means that could end the difficulty. Before leaving I turned to Mr. Biggar and Mr. Wainwright, and said: "I see only one faint glimmer of hope which can save all. It means more in the way of responsibility than I can take on my own shoulders, but perhaps my colleagues, knowing the situation, will help to carry it with me. to save this country and to save Mr. Hays." They asked me what it was. I asked Mr. Biggar if the reason Mr. Hays had given for refusing to include all men in his undertaking was because I had limited the Government's obligation to the men in Canada. He replied: "Yes." I said: " Do you think that if the Government were to extend its obligation to include all, Mr. Hays would extend his also." Mr. Biggar replied that if he did not there would be no ground left for him to stand upon. Then I said: "Very well, Mr. Biggar, you can give this letter to Mr. Hays, and you can say to him at the same time that if that is his reason, if he is prepared to sign the understanding we have reached on the ground that ' the men' means exactly what it says in the one paragraph as well as the other, I will be prepared to ask my colleagues to give me authority to sign the memorandum on the basis of this understanding, but before I ask them to do this Mr. Hays must have expressed his readiness to sign without reservation, mental or otherwise. I will then know, as you will know, that that alone, knowing the man we are dealing with, can terminate this strike and save all the direful consequences which must follow from either its continuance or a disclosure of what has transpired is an effort to negotiate a settlement." Biggar and AVainwright looked more than relieved. They agreed that the obligation could mean little or nothing, and virtually admitted that it was simply a pretext; after it was understood that Mr. Biggar would spend the morning with Mr. Hays and secure, if possible, his signature, and that Mr. AVainwright would come to Ottawa and be present to sign there on behalf of Mr. Hays with his authority, after Mr. Hays had signed in Montreal himself, and take back the document with my signature if it could be obtained. I left them and returned by the 10.30 train to Ottawa, getting in at 1.30 a.m.
Tuesday, August 2-This was the position when 1 was again at my office on Tuesday morning. X inquired what ministers were in the city, and found that Mr. Brodeur and Dr.

Pugsley were the only ones present. Mr. Wain-wright arrived at noon. He had not yet heard from Mr. Biggar, hut said he expected to do so any moment. We agreed that we should meet at the club. Mr. Brodeur joined me at luncheon, and when we came out of the dining room we met Mr. Wainwright, and I asked him if he had received word from Biggar. He said he had; that all was now satisfactorily arranged, if the Government could see its way to enlarge its part of the undertaking. Mr. Biggar had, while we were talking together, suggested the words " men on the Grand Trunk system," as the best words to include in the document, it being understood that the Central Vermont might have to be considered as part of the system if Mr. Hays so suggested. Mr. Biggar, however, did not intend to raise the point with him. Wainwright said: " In the phone message which 1 have received Biggar tells me that Fitzhugh has insisted with Mr. Hays on having the clause read 'The Grand Trunk Railway or Central Vermont."' "The Central Vermont," he said, " is Fitzhugh." I then told Mr. Wainwright that Dr. Pugsley and Mr. Brodeur were the only other ministers in the city. I had expected from a wire Sir Richard had sent me from Kingston that we would be having a meeting of the Cabinet (but Sir Richard had been unable to come). On hearing this Wainwright said that Mr. Hays had signed the undertaking as submitted to him by Mr. Biggar, and that he (Wainwright) had been authorized to say that on my signing, either alone or with the consent of other ministers, that would be enough, and that he was authorized to sign at this end on Mr. Hays' behalf the similar document we had here. I then asked Mr. Wainwright if he would meet Dr. Pugsley, Mr. Brodeur and myself at three o'clock. Mr. Brodeur and I talked over the whole situation, and we all met in Dr. Pugsley's office at three o'clock. I then went over the whole story with Dr. Pugsley and Mr. Brodeur in Mr. Wainwright's presence, very much as I have narrated it in this letter, so that they were familiar with all that had taken place. I asked Mr. Wainwright in their presence if he were quite certain that they were agreed to sign this undertaking in the form in which we had finally drafted it; this would end the strike. He said: " Yes." I asked him if we did not, did he know of anything else that would save the situation. He was still more emphatic in saying that he did not; that he felt this was absolutely the only thing that could be done to, on the one hand, terminate the strike, and on the other avoid an open rupture between the Government and Mr. Hays and the disclosure of all that had taken place. Wainwright said that he doubted if all of the men that would be left on the system, including the Central Vermont, would amount to more than a few dozen at the outside, if. as a matter of fact, there were any at all. All the men who had been engaged had been hired only by the month, and there were few of them who were really any good. Besides, the company would be opening up new parts of lines, and would be needing extra men before the next three months were completed. He did not think the whole thing would really amount to anything. I asked him if he were quite positive there could be no further hitch. He said: "Quite." Also, he said to Dr. Pugsley and Mr, Brodeur: " I am ready to sign on the authorization of Mr. Hays, who has already signed, and if my authority to do so should be ever questioned by him, I am prepared to hand in my resignation as vice-president of the company." [Mr. Mackenzie King.)
It was perfectly evident to my mind that there could be no estimating the seriousness of the situation that might arise were the public on the morrow to be informed that despite all that had taken place in the way of negotiation there was only a prolonged dispute to be expected on the road. I had been given to understand by the men that the engineers and firemen were going to quit unless a settlement were reached,

not out of sympathy, but on the ground that the trains not being properly manned they felt it too hazardous to continue their runs. With this prospect before us, and knowing the man with whom we were dealing, I felt it was our duty to sign, and so expressed myself. Dr. Pugsley and Mr. Brodeur were of the same opinion, and we three then signed the memorandum, and Mr. Wainwright signed as follows: " Authority of President, by William Wainwright, second vice-president, Grand Trunk Railway system."
I then returned to my office and sent a confidential wire to Messrs. Murdock and Berry, the Canadian leaders, stating that Mr. Hays had given to Sir Frederick Borden and myself an undertaking that the men would within three months be taken back into the service and within that time placed in their former positions, and that in accordance with our understanding I would expect to hear from them by wire immediately that the strike had been declared at an end. Within half an hour I received this word. About this time Mr. Biggar phoned me from Montreal to know how negotiar tions were proceeding. I told him what had transpired and that the strike was off. I then wrote Mr. Hays, saying that having received from him the undertaking asked for in our letter of July 31, Sir Frederick and I were able to assure him, not only that the strike would be immediately terminated, but that it had been declared at an end. I then mailed to each of the parties under registered cover, copies of the agreement by which each were bound. I wired you, mentioning that the strike had been concluded through Government intervention, and after wiring Sir Frederick gave out to the press copies of the agreement without comment, other than that the agreement spoke for itself. Before the night was over, I am informed, every man from Chicago to Portland over the whole system had reported himself as ready for duty.
This letter, I fear, is already much too long, but it has seemed to me owing to yourself and the Government that all of the important circumstances should be fully narrated and carefully recorded before there is possibility of any future misunderstanding.
And then there is one paragraph-I am omitting some others here-which shows our position on this matter and which shows to what extent the interests of the men were really protected and safeguarded at that tjme.
There is one other thing:
This is still part of my letter to Sir Wilfrid.
I see by the press that Mr. Hays Is proposing to consider as cancelled all obligation which his company may be under in the way of pensions, partially or all but fully earned by any of the men who may have gone out on strike. A pension has always been considered a reward

of servicTe,-not a. manacle to fetter personal liberty. Some of the men who have been out on this strike have, I understand given thirty-four years of their life to the company's service. They, according to Mr. Hays, are to lose every cent of their pensions, and start in as new men. Unless Mr. Hays or those who control his company, are prepared to recede from this position, my own individual view is that the Parliament of Canada would be justified in refusing to grant any company with which Mr. Hays is concerned any further consideration of any kind, and that the Government should lead Parliament in this view. If, as Mr. Hays will probably say, he cannot legally grant the pension, Parliament might help to rid him of this limitation by enacting legislation which will give him the legal power he requires. It is to be hoped for the sake of the interests of the company, to say nothing of the rights of others, that his directors will not allow him to persist in a stand of this kind.


Mr. BEST:: Is there a postscript?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: ' I know my hon. friends opposite are anxious to get through with this matter in a hurry; but this has been standing for ten years, and if it is going to take all night to-night and all day to-morrow to obtain justice for these men, I am prepared to stand here in order to obtain it. For ten years I have stood in this country under fire of hon. gentlemen opposite as one who betrayed the workingmen in this particular situation, When I was not in this Parliament where I could raise my voice, some hon. gentlemen opposite were out on platform after platform throughout this country pointing to me as the cause why these men had not received their pensions. I have waited until to-day to tell the whole story; I am going to tell it all, and I am not through yet.
Mr. MeMASTER:	It will be best to be
patient.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is something eternal about justice, and if it is going to be possible to prove the truth in this case on behalf of the workingmen of this country, that is going to be done. In that letter to Sir Wilfrid Laurier I stated all the facts at the time and it will be apparent to any hon. member that such a letter could only have been written immediately after a situation of that kind. I went into the matter in great detail, because I was fully conscious of the tremendous responsibility I had to assume as a single individual at that time when the Prime Minister and other ministers were out in the West. The Minister of Railways was also away, and I was, therefore, careful promptly to put in every detail. Had the Grand Trunk Railway Company carried out its obligations, not a line of this would have been made public. Had the
Grand Trunk Railway Company reinstated the men, not a line of this would have been made public. Had the Grand Trunk Railway Company, within the past ten years, been willing to do what was honest and fair and straight and just with these men as regards pensions, not a line of this would have been made public. But making this public ought to be the means of compelling this Parliament, before it proceeds further with this agreement, to see that this opportunity does not pass without full justice being done to the men in this matter. I think I have made it perfectly clear to the House that if it had not been for the patience and loyalty of thSse employees of the Grand Trunk Railway Company ; if it had not been for their willingness to do all in their power to bring this situation to an end, no one can tell into what disastrous condition this country would have come, because the situation was a most critical one. The men having acted in that way, it is up to Parliament to see that no further jockeying is done with regard to their rights.
I concluded my letter to Sir Wilfrid Laurier by stating that until the Grand Trunk Railway Company came to their senses in the matter, until their president acted in an honourable way, no further assistance should be given by the Government to that company. There is seated beside me this evening the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) who was Minister of Finance in Sir Wilfrid's Government at that time. He can bear out the truth of what I say, when I tell the committee, as I do, that at the time this matter was under negotiation, Mr. Hays had been coming to the Government for assistance in connection with some of his lines in the West; he had asked for a very liberal amount, as is the custom, and the Government was favourably disposed to help him. What was the answer that Sir Wilfrid Laurier gave him? Put back those men into their positions and carry out your agreement, and I will go before Parliament and get you your money. Mr. Hays said that he would, but he never did. Another week passed and then another, and we dissolved Parliament without Mr. Hays getting a five-cent piece, although it was millions of dollars that he was after at that time. What was our reason for taking that position? We took the position that until the company was honourable in regard to its obligations and carried them out, the company would not get another five-cent piece from Parliament if we could avoid giving it to them. That statement haa

never before been made public; but the former Minister of Finance will recall that that was the position taken by Sir Wilfrid Laurier in dealing with this company, and the reason that the Grand Trunk Railway Company did not receive any assistance from the Government of Canada, until another Government took office, was because the company did not carry out those obligations. The Minister of Labour knows well enough the trouble he had of bringing Mr. Hays later on into line in getting anything done. What I want to make clear is this. If we are to have a contest between any corporation and the Government of Canada, are we going to let the corporation have the last word, or are we going to insist upon the Government of Canada having the final say in a matter of justice? I want to say to the Government that that is the situation to-day. This has been a long battle; it has been a fight as between a great railway corporation and the Government of Canada as to who is to have the last word in a matter of justice and honour, and my hon. friends opposite cannot afford to allow this opportunity to pass without seeing that this matter is put once and for all where there will be no chance of escape on the part of the Grand Railway Company from meeting its liabilities to the fullest possible extent.
I have taken up a great deal of the time of the committee, but I feel that this is a matter than which there is nothing of greater importance to this country at the present time. What is the greatest question that we have before us? It is the question of industrial relations. What is the proper solution of it? It is straight and honest dealing and nothing more. If you have not confidence you get nowhere in the industrial world or in the improvement of industrial relations. Parliament is the custodian of public honour. The Minister of Railways, if he examines the reports of the debates which took place at the time this matter was under discussion, will see where he himself, pointing to me, said over and over again: The Government intervened in this matter; they should get justice for the men. Now my hon. friend has the chance. He can put in this little agreement an amendment which I am about to move, and that will adjust the matter for all time.


John Dowsley Reid: You should have put
that in the Bills that you passed that session.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What Bills?


John Dowsley Reid: The Grand Trunk Bills.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: We did not
pass any. That is exactly what we refused to do. We had the Bills ready to bring down but we refused to introduce them, and it cost the Grand Trunk Railway Company several millions of dollars.


John Dowsley Reid: The statutes show that you did.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Will you cite them?


John Dowsley Reid: A little later.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I repeat that
to the extent of millions of dollars the Grand Trunk was refused assistance which it asked for at that time. I recall very clearly that they came for this assistance within a couple of weeks of the dissolution of Parliament. Sir Wilfrid Laurier was in England attending the coronation. My hoh. friend (Mr. Fielding) was Acting Prime Minister at the time, I think; I know that he had in hand the legislation that the Grand Trunk was asking for. It was held up during all the time that Sir Wilfrid was in England. It would- have been introduced while he was abroad if the men had been put back to work. The Government notified Mr. Hays that as soon as the men were reinstated the legislation would be introduced. Sir Wilfrid returned, and I think he had been back only about two weeks when Parliament dissolved. I myself heard Sir Wilfrid say to Mr. Hays: "I will keep Parliament in session two weeks longer to give you a chance to put these men back and to have full justice done to them. I will then bring in the legislation that you want. But I will not ask Parliament to vote a cent to the Grand Trunk Railway Company until these men are reinstated." That course wras never taken. Parliament dissolved, and the Grand Trunk Railway Company never got their money.


John Dowsley Reid: If the hon. gentleman had taken the position that no further legislation would go through in the interests of the Grand Trunk until they had settled with these men, that would have been all right. But I make the statement that the then Minister of Labour at that session assisted in putting through legislation for the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I take issue
with my hon. friend; the record will speak for itself. The strike took place in July, 1910. The matter of the three months' reinstatement came to be a question at issue

while the session was on. I think it was the ex-Minister of Labour (Mr. Crothers) who pointed out the other day that the question whether any of the men had been guilty of the violation of law had been referred by mutual consent to Judge Barron. It was well on in 1910 or in the beginning of 1911 before it was known what men were to be reinstated, but once it became apparent that the Grand Trunk was refusing to reinstate, certain of the men, we refused to introduce a single bit of legislation on behalf of the company. Every hon. member on this side who was in the House at that time knows that very well. The records will bear out literally every word that I have said.
Now, Mr. Chairman, 1 move that section 2 of the Bill be amended by adding as subsection 2 thereof the following words:
The said agreement is hereby amended by adding thereto under the caption "Superannuation and Pension Funds" the following:
"Any right or interest of any employee of the Grand Trunk Railway Company existing in either the pension system or the Insurance or Provident Society prior to the strike of the company's employees which occurred in July, 1910, is hereby declared not to have been affected by the said strike or any circumstance or condition arising out of or in connection therewith."
Let me just say a word in conclusion. There is not a line in that amendment which is not in full accord with what was understood at that time by Sir Frederick Borden and myself, who represented the Government of Canada. Hon. gentlemen opposite have said that as members of the Government it was up to us to see that that obligation was fully discharged. I have pointed out to-night, in language which, I think, is unmistakeable, how difficult it was at the time the strike was on to get justice done. I have also shown wherein every effort was made while the Government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier was in office to have that wrong righted. The member for West Elgin (Mr. Crothers) who was my successor as Minister of Labour, worked hard-every one on his side knows how hard he worked -to get justice done in the matter of the reinstatement of the men. He tried also to effect adjustment in the matter of pensions, but was unsuccessful, and that matter has not yet been settled. If this chance goes by there may be no possibility of settlement for a long time to come. All that the Government have promised is that they will urge upon the board of arbitration the consideration of the moral or legal obligation. But the Government know that so far as
the legal obligation is concerned the board will probably take issue with them upon the ground of the bearing of the statute of limitations upon matters of contract.
The Government have intimated that if the board makes a finding along another line the Government will be under a moral obligation to make good these pensions. That is shifting the liability from the Grand Trunk Railway Company to the Government, and that should not be permitted. This is a debt owing by the Grand Trunk Railway Company to certain of its employees. It is a liability, if there ever was a liability upon a company, which ought to be met by the Grand Trunk Railway Company itself and not transferred to the people of Canada . So I ask that we take advantage of this opportunity to put the matter beyond peradventure and to save the honour of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, the honour of the Government and the honour of this Parliament by seeing that justice is done where justice has been long overdue.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: Mr. Chairman, at the risk of detaining members of the committee for a few moments at this hour of the morning, I desire to say a few words in reply to the speech delivered by the leader of the Opposition (Mt. Mackenzie King).
I have been much gratified at the enthusiasm which my hon. friend has manifested to-night in championing the cause of those of the Grand Trunk employees who struck in 1910, so far as pensions are concerned. I regret that he did not manifest that enthusiasm earlier. It is now nearly ten years since the agreement was effected to which my hon. friend has referred. That agreement provided, in substance, that all men who had been on strike, except those Who had been guilty of any violation of the law, should be reinstated within three months and that they should be paid an increase of wages dating back from the first of May, 1910. Although my hon. friend assisted in the negotiations to bring about this agreement there is no reference to pensions in it. He was in power from July, when that agreement was entered into, until a year after the following October, a period of fifteen months. He states that about three months after the agreement was entered into it was ascertained who were entitled to be reinstated. There were about two hundred men whom the company refused to reinstate. A judge was appointed to go into all these

cases, and he reported that 138 of these men were entitled to be reinstated under the agreement that was made in July, 1910. Now what has occurred? You heard my hon. friend say tonight, Mr. Chairman,-I was surprised at the statement, and I hope some explanation of it is forthcoming-that the Government of which he was a member constantly refused to do anything for the Grand Trunk Railway Company until they should discharge the full duty of reinstating these men, and giving them their rights respecting pensions.


William Sora Middlebro: His words were that they refused to pass legislation.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I may explain for the sake of accuracy that I was speaking without having had much opportunity of going over the question of actual *months. But the whole purport of my remarks was that once it was decided who were to be reinstated and the company refused to reinstate such men, then the Government refused to give further assistance one way or the other. I cannot speak from memory as to whether the judge's report was made within two, or three or six months, but I can say that from the moment I knew there were certain men entitled to be reinstated, and that they were not taken back, I took the position that if one cent were given to the Grand Trunk I would leave the Cabinet if necessary.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: That was not the
statement made by the hon. member.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Let the record speak for itself.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: The statement made
by the hon. gentleman was that no legislation would be passed by the Government of which he was a member. I have here the statutes of 1911, and the House will remember that the agreement was entered into in July, 1910. The particular statute in question is not of great length and I had better read it. It is under date, April 4, 1911, nearly eight months after the agreement was signed:
Whereas a petition has been presented praying that it be enacted as hereinafter set forth, and it is expedient to grant the prayer of the said petition:' Therefore His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows :
1.	This Act may be cited as the Grand Trunk Act, 1911.
2.	The expression, "the company," where used in this Act, means the Grand Trunk Railway .Company of Canada.
3.	Notwithstanding anything iri the Railway Act heretofore passed respecting the company,
[Mr. Crothers.l
any of the various classes of stock heretofore or hereafter authorized to be created and issued by the company shall be transferable ini such manner and upon such conditions as shall be provided by the by-laws of the Board of Directors of the company.
4.	The company may acquire, hold, guarantee, pledge, sell or otherwise dispose of shares of the capital stock, bonds, debentures or any other securities heretofore or hereafter issued by the Montreal and Southern Counties Railway Company, and for that purpose may utilize any funds of the company, including proceeds arising from the sale of any class of stock which the company is now or may hereafter be authorized to create or issue, and upon the acquisition of any such stock, bonds, debentures or other securities, may exercise all the powers thereof and receive any dividend or interest paid thereon.
5.	The company may guarantee, upon such terms and conditions as are agreed upon, the due payment, as the same matures, of interest at the rate of four per cent per annum upon first mortgage bonds to be duly issued by the Grand Trunk Western Railway Company, for a principal amount not exceeding $30,000,000 payable fifty years from the date thereof: Provided that to the extent necessary the proceeds of such bonds shall be utilized in the payment or redemption of any outstanding bonds and any overdue coupon appertaining thereto issued by the said Grand Trunk Western Railway Company, and guaranteed by the company, under or pursuant to the provisions of the Grand Trunk Railway Act, 1901, or of the agreement sot forth in the schedules of the said Act.
(2) Nothing in the preceding subsectioij shall be regarded or construed as in any way limiting, curtailing, or impairing any of the powers now vested in the company.	-
I shall not read the other sections, but I may quote the short titles. They are as follows:
6.	Power to issue perpetual consolidated debenture stock. 7. Ranking and conditions. 8. Application of proceeds of stock. 9. 1888, c. 58, s. 6 to apply. 10. Commencement of Act

Certificate of chairman-.-copies of certificate-legal evidence.
During the same session, under date May 19, another Act was passed, in connection with the Grand Trunk Railway, at a time when the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) was a member of the Laur-ier Administration. This legislatno-n was passed eight or nine months after the agreement was entered into, and while my hon. friend was a member of the Government and of the House. Yet he tells us that it was decided that no legislation would be passed by the Government of which he was a member until these men should be reinstated.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If my hon. friend will study my remarks carefully, he will see that I spoke of legislation in the nature of financial aid.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: This was all of a financial character. The point is that the leader

of the Opposition endeavoured to lead the House to believe that the Government-of which he was a member refused to pass any legislation unless the Grand Trunk Railway Company should reinstate these men. But here we have two statutes passed, one eight months and another nine months after the agreement was entered into, and no effort was made by the leader of the Opposition to insist upon the Grand Trunk Company doing justice to these men. All he had to do was to appear before the Railway Committee, and ask them not to pass this legislation until the company dealt justly by the men. When I was placed at the head of the Labour Department on the 10th of October, 1911, the evidence was there that there were 200 men who had not been reinstated although one hundred and thirty-eight of them had been declared by the judge to be entitled to be reinstated. Yet they were not reinstated. I went to Charles M. Hays and I said to him in private: "Mr. Hays, you will get no- legislation while this Government is in power until you carry out your agreement respecting these men." At the next session Mr. Wainwright, who was a very fine man, came before the Private Bills Committee and asked to have two Bills sanctioned. I, like the leader of the Opposition, do not care to speak of myself, but I got up and addressed the committee and asked them not to pass these Bills until that agreement was carried out. That is what my hon. friend might have done on the 11th April 1911 and on the 19th May 1911. When I took that [DOT]position Mr. Wainwright reported:	"I
will never make another application to the railway or Private Bills Committee of the House until you carry out that agreement." The result of it was that the agreement was carried out and the men were reinstated or as many of them1 as desired it were reinstated. Some of them had got better jobs elsewhere and they did not desire to be placed back in the employ of the Grand Trunk. Not only were the men received .back into the employ of the company but they got their back pay. I told Mr. Wainwright to send the cheques to me for the back pay; the company sent the cheque -to me and I sent them along. The hon. member for North Perth (Mr. Morphy) who comes from Stafford which is a great Grand Trunk Railway centre, stated the other night that from me these Grand Trunk employees who had been on strike in the city of Stratford received ninety-three cheques some of them for as much as $100. Those were means that the leader of the Opposition might have utilized to force
the Grand Trunk Company to treat these men justly and according to the agreement that they had entered into. Now my hon. friend goes into elaborate, wearying detail, detail that is immaterial, that has nothing whatever to do with the matter, in the effort to make the House believe that he had done everything possible, that no legislation had been, given, and that they had refused to give any money until they had reinstated these men although, as I said, these statutes were passed in May and April of 1911.
Right hon. CHARLES J. DOHERTY (Minister of Justice): I have no desire to detain the committee but for a few minutes. I would not do the leader of the Opposition the injustice to imagine, notwithstanding the eloquence to which we have been treated, that he is in the remotest degree serious in the amendment which he has proposed.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What nonsense !


Charles Joseph Doherty: II have never in my riot very long parliamentary experience witnessed any such exhibition of childish selfcomplacency and forgetfulness on the part of a gentleman who usually is thoughful of what he owed in common fairness to the members of this Government. He endeavoured in an oration of self-glorification to play upon the natural sympathy of the members of this House for claims that are put forward with very great strength on behalf of a number of workingmen, to pose as their protector and to propose a method of protecting them of which-I will not say, as he said of us with respect to what we said we would do-he knew would produce no effect, I will not say that of him. I will be charitable enough to acknowledge his ignorance that the method he has proposed will produce no effect but that does not alter the fact that he could have selected no less effective a method to be of use to these men if he had made a search to find the most ineffective.
I was lost in adihiration-absolutely lost in admiration-of the honourable leader's capacity for working himself up to a high pitch of indignation when I saw him pounding his fists together. The usually mild leader, in this flood of indignation, could not control himself and had to pound his fists in the fervour of his indignation. Then he told us that justice was eternal,- and justice being eternal he thought it worth while to wait ten years before he would lift a finger to have justice done. He thought it desirable, justice always being eternal and therefore liable to be done by anybody that might come along, to wait not

only ten years but to wait until he had no power to do anything about it; because, you know, justice is eternal and there was lots of time by and by when he would! not be able to do anything about it. Then he would pound his fists and raise himself to a condition of indignation which was almost beyond his own control. I ask you to imagine the lengths to which the leader of the Opposition will go to convince this House that justice is eternal. He would have been willing to have stayed here all night. Surely the workingman population of this great Canada of ours wi carry this heroic figure in triumph.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Would the minister be prepared to give them a chance?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Most assuredly. It
would afford me the greatest pleasure to convoke a gathering although it will not be needed to be convoked when they read the hon. gentleman's speech and realise that the hon. gentleman would have stayed up all night. They will flock to it and there will be no need for me to intervene.
And then, of course, the hon. gentleman -nobody henceforth can question it-is the most devoted friend of the workingmen. We do not need the evidence of that, it is so unanswerable-the hon. gentleman actually admits it himself. He read us a long letter of his own, irrefutable testimony on the point. I wonder that he found it necessary to read so much of it in view of the fact that we knew who the author was and of course the ipse dixit of the hon. gentleman establishes his qualifications as the sole protector of labour as he was in those days in the past and all through the ten years. And yet he has been doing nothing but biding his time, waiting for the thrilling moment when he would be able to take no action at all except sit up all night. The hon. gentleman himself indicated in the very letter which he read to us to-night, which took so long to read, and w'hich he assured us was going to create a great emotion in the outside world when it was read -il certainly hope it may create a greater commotion outside than it did here, because much to my regret I am forced to confess that I saw some very near neighbours of his who during its reading were giving evidence of how much more profoundly they thought when their eyes were shut-the hon. gentleman, in that very letter pointed out to his leader at that time what he claims he knew ought to have been done, and yet neither his leader nor himself did it. He told his leader that Mr. 
Hays stood behind some provision of the law that prevented his granting these pensions to people who did not have continuous service; and then he went on to point out to his leader that, of course, Parliament had to legislate to confer that power upon the Grand Trunk railway. The hon. gentleman tells us-of course, I do not question the truth of it-that on his own showing at that time he had personal knowledge of all the facts connected with that agreement and its violation. With that knowledge of those facts he was able to lay his finger on the sort of legislation that would have been a complete remedy, and yet neither his leader nor himself-the Government of which they were members continuing in the control of the Parliament of Canada for something approaching two years afterwards-ever moved a finger or took a step to initiate and pass through that legislation which in the hon. gentleman's own letter he points out would have been an effective remedy. Having an absolute knowledge-personal to himself, needing no evidence to bring it to him-of the agreement that had been made and broken and the remedy that could be brought to correct the consequences of it, he folded his arms and did absolutely nothing, and waited as I have said for ten years, to take the action which he has taken to-night.
It is interesting occasionally to look through a little past history. I find that this matter has furnished the subject of discussions in Parliament at an earlier period when the hon. gentleman was in the possession of the power that would have enabled him to enact that legislation that he knew so well was the proper remedy. This matter was discussed at different times, and I find there was a debate with regard to it in the Parliamentary session of 1910-11 which is reported at page 3375 of Hansard. In the course of that discussion the hon. gentleman, who to-day is so full of zeal for the recognition of the claims of these men actually told Parliament-not so long after the events had occurred-that in the course of these negotiations the men said they did not care much about pensions anyway. He was in power then*and he was giving testimony against the claim of the men on whose behalf to-day his heart beats almost to suffocation, on whose behalf his blood boils to the extent that he would sit up all night to effect a settlement. Did he do so at that time when other people were urging the Government to which he belonged to do something? Let me quote

from the hon. gentleman's remarks at that time.
Mr. King: As regards pensions, when the matter was under consideration, the leaders of the men who were negotiating on behalf of the employees took the position that they did not care about pensions one way or the other, that if the company cared to regard them as having violated its agreement with them to the extent of breaking any regulation which governed pensions the company was perfectly free to put that interpretation upon it.
That is the witness for the man talking in 1911 when he had the power to direct such legislation as he might think advisable-that is the testimony he gave at that time. The hon. gentleman said further:
. I -was rather surprised myself at them taking that stand, but they did take it, and they gave me to understand that insofar as pensions were concerned, if they had forfeited the pension by going out, and if the company eared to put that interpretation upon if they were free to do so.
Helpful to the cause of the men, was it not? Helpful to the doing of that justice which' should be rendered.


Mr. ARTHURS:: Who made those remarks?


Charles Joseph Doherty: The Hon. Mr. King, at that time Minister of Labour in the Government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Now, in view of that record of faithful testimony in the interests of the men and that display of exceeding activity and energy while he was in power, let us look for a moment, at what the hon. gentleman calls upon this Government to do to-day.
As I said a few moments ago, I always think I owe it to myself as a gentleman to impute no dishonest motives to any man, and therefore I will not follow the example which the hon. leader of the Opposition has given us this evening in suggesting that the members of this Government when' they stated what they thought they could do and what they would do knew perfectly well that it would produce no effect. I happen to be the member of the Government who most recently made a statement upon that subject. Of course, henceforth I know in what esteem the hon. leader of the Opposition holds my truthfulness and sincerity. The hon. gentleman's language was not parliamentary but the Speaker did not notice it, and I felt I could treat it with contempt. I will not follow that example, and therefore I will not say that the hon. gentleman is now proposing something which he knows can lead nowhere-his ignorance may earn him forgiveness.
What is it that he proposes we should do now? He proposes that we put in an
agreement, which has been ratified and completed by one of the parties to it, a condition that will, in face of the fact that what is to be done under that agreement is to seek a judicial determination as between us, the acquirers of the company and its present holders, of what are to-day the actual debts of the Grand Trunk-after we have agreed to submit that question to arbitration, my hon. friend proposes that this Parliament shall order that it be made a condition of the agreement that the Grand Trunk Railway Company does owe a certain indebtedness, which up to this time we understand the company has contested.
Certainly hon. members sitting on this side are as anxious to see justice done to those interested in this particular claim as even the hon. gentlemen who sit up all night to say it. But we have got to 'remember that some very elementary general rules bind all persons and all courts,- even this high court of Parliament; and I am satisfied that the very claimants on whose behalf he speaks would recognize, because of the absolute negation of the fundamental principle of British justice that is involved in it, the utter futility and unsusceptibility of justification of the hon. gentleman's proposition. Because, what is it? His proposal is that while he who personally knew the facts at the time when they were fresh, and he had the power to act, would not undertake, or his chief or the Government of which he was a member would not at his instance undertake, to legislate into existence a liability on the part of the Grand Trunk, to-night this- Parliament-proud of being a Parliament that ""carries on'' on the lines of the constitution that we have inherited from the Mother country, and that consequently realizes the absolute injustice and therefore the absolute impossibility under our British system of judging any man or any company unheard,-shall, on the ipse dixit of himself, the great heroic defender of the workingman, proceeds to do what he did not venture to do with his own personal knowledge. In effect, he says:	You shall proceed to
decide that question with regard to each and every one of those men and the company.
Now, I have read and, only the other day, I heard very strong expressions of a conviction that the claims of the men were well founded. I am very strongly impressed that they are right. But I cannot say that I have the proof. The hon. gentleman says he has the proof,-and he had it in time and would not use it. I have not got the

proof, none of us sitting on this side of the House has got the proof, that would justify us to determine that question to-night in one sense or the other and constitute ourselves a court of justice to do what no court of justice in any British land would dream of doing-condemn a party without having heard him. That is what the hon. gentleman asks us to do. It is said, -that where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise. Certainly, fortunate is he who can save himself from the criticism of such a proposal by the all-covering mantle of ab-sense of knowledge and of appreciation of the most elementary and fundamental principles that ought to guide a public man in dealing with public questions.
Now,-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As a matter of correct statement I want to say a word to my right hon. friend.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Certainly, if the hon. gentleman wants to interrupt me.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I thought my right hon. friend was through.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Now, let me call attention to another matter. I think I have made sufficiently clear to any one except the hon. gentleman the manifest impossibility of there being any way out in the direction he has chosen for the protection of those whom he has taken under his care. I heard a learned judge once open his charge to a jury by saying, "Gentlemen of the jury, the prisoner at the bar has had the disadvantage of counsel.'' I wish to point out some of the things-


Andrew Ross McMaster: What.would have happened to him if he had been defended by the Minister of Justice?


Charles Joseph Doherty: My good and honourable friend knows better than that, and he is well enough acquainted with me to know that nothing he could say would annoy me, because I know and appreciate the goodness and kindness of his heart. I do not make the observation in any offensive way.
Now, as I have said, I think I have made sufficiently clear the impossibility of applying the particular remedy which counsel on behalf of these men-self-constituted counsel-under the disadvantage of whose advocacy they suffer, has suggested for them.
But let us suppose for a moment that it were an adaquate remedy and that the hon. gentleman had always thought, as he thtinks to-night, that it was an adequate remedy, and that all through these ten years, as

he has represented, he has toiled and sat up long nights nursing the one consolation of the knowledge that "justice is eternal," and nursing and keeping warm his adamantine determination that if the day ever came when he could do nothing about the matter he would-make trouble for somebody else. 'What is the situation? Included in that long period of ten years was the session last fall. The hon. gentleman was not with us during that session so long as, perhaps, he would have liked to have been. I am sure we would have all been glad to have him with us sooner,- not that we would not have regretted seeing the diminution of authority of the authority of the hon. gentleman whom he replaced. But he (Mr. Mackenzie King) was in this House a very considerable part of that session, long enough to make speeches about the Bill that was before the House and about the agreement that >vas to be made. During all that time his mind was filled with the reflection that "justice is eternal" and that justice must be done, and that the way to do justice was to put into that agreeement the clause that he proposes to-night. But instead of .putting it in, he sat by and heard set forth and passed into law every precise thing that was to be put into that agreement; he sat by, this heroic self-saerificer in the interest of justice, and treasured up ,and kept well within his bosom that knowledge of which he had the monopoly that in this little clause in that agreement was justice for the workingman. But he never proposed it in useful time, when Parli-ment was determining, before the agreement was drawn up, what ought to be put .into it, and when Parliament was agreed, that when the agreement as authorized by this Parliament would be drawn up and ratified by the Government, that would be the agreement. During all that time we never heard a whisper of this talismanic clause that was to ensure justice to the .workingman. It was carefully hoarded up until it was too late to be useful to the workingman, but might, perhaps, serve some purpose in putting a difficulty in the way of the passing of this measure which has not the remotest conneection with anything of that kind, and might, perhaps, furnish to the future historian an opportunity of admiring my hon. friend's magnificent flow of eloquence including the reading-which did not flow quite so smoothly -to which we were listening this evening.
It is remarkable that during those ten years that there should have been a moment

of forgetfulness, a sort of interlude that occurred during that period of last session when the hon. gentleman was here, when this great duty of seeing that justice should ,be done, when he was in a better position to do it, escaped his attention; or, perhaps, after all, as hon. members know, may happen when one hugs to his bosom the-belief, which affords such gratification to the hon. pose it was another case of thinking there was no hurry. Just as there was no hurry when he could have done something, so there was no hurry last session when he could have done something if this amendment to the agreement would be effective in doing anything in any event. But he did not do it then-apparently the thought about justice being eternal did not press strongly on him at the moment. Perhaps he thought then he had some other ways of embarrassing the passing of this measure. To-night, however, he has waked up and he has revived this letter of which he has given us the benefit. I am not going to try the experiment; but it would be a very interesting one, to try to see which would be the more tiresome-to sit and listen to that letter, or to sit down and endeavour to read it. I should like to have a committee consider that point and make a report. I suppose the hon. member flatters himself that that letter is going to produce a commotion from one end of this great Dominion to the other and to settle forever, on the strength of his own testimony, that we have in him the greatest friend of labour, the greatest settler of labour's disputes, that Canada or any other country ever knew. He counts on that letter, and this little amendment looks to- me very like an excuse, a something on which to hang that letter and the .accompanying speech, and to enable the hon. gentleman to get himself properly reposed on that pedestal of Saviour of Labour, upon w'hich he disported himself so gracefully this evening.
I do not know that it was necessary to enter into a discussion of this thing. As I said at the outset I cannot really bring myself to do the hon. gentleman's intelligence the injustice of believing that he is ,really serious in this matter. It has served his purposes. He has made his speech; he has read his letter; he has posed as Labour's saviour; he has thrilled us through and through with the novel statement that "justice is eternal," and he has given us a super-thrill as we stood and watched and listened to him making that heroic declaration, which I have no doubt will be his-87
toric, that when justice is at stake, he is /willing to stay up all night. Surely his purpose has 'been achieved. Any man who, with a little amendment of that kind, can achieve all that, ought to be able to go home and sleep quite quietly and think in the few hours between now and morning Justice can take care of herself.
I do not know whether I am right or wrong in my opinion of how seriously the hon. gentleman takes this resolution. I have no doubt at all that the common sense of the committee does not take this amendment as meaning anything serious, and I am equally satisfied that it will entirely fail of what, I will not say was its deliberate purpose, but as I look at it, this is its only possible explanation-of casting dust- in the eyes of the workingmen of this country and inducing them to take the exhibition of this evening as having any serious meaning and as an attempt to be of service to them.
Now let me come back for a moment to what I said the other day; at the risk of the imputation of dishonesty or insincerity, I propose to repeat it. Do you serve people by showy speeches and means that bring you nowhere? Or do you serve people by giving them the best assistance that can he given without asking for violation of the most ordinary principles which govern the determination of claims of one person against an other? I did say the other day, and other colleagues of mine have said before, that they would see to it that fair opportunity was given for fair and just hearing of the representations 'that can be made on behalf of the men. I am sure that the testimony of the hon. member will be invoked for its full value. I would hope that in some way the testimony that he gave in 1911 in the days of his power would be overlooked. As to his testimony of to-night in that lengthy letter-well, perhaps he will have a committee appointed to make a digest of it, and when it is properly digested I have no doubt that it will be more effective. However that may he, when I say things I am in the habit of saying things that I mean. I am not habituated to being told that the things I say I know mean nothing, I say again that every possible opportunity of putting the claims of these men in shape to be property passed upon by a competent authority, namely, by the Board of Arbitration, who will have opportunity of hearing both sides, will be given.
I shall not go into what may happen if there is found to he no legal claim, but a moral claim, or what may be the conse-



quences if there is found to be a legal claim. That opportunity will be afforded, as I said the other day, and if that means should pr6ve ineffective, then it will be for the Government of that time-whether the sins of this country should put it in certain hands that aspire to grasp it or whether it remains where it is-to determine what the justice and the equity of the case calls-for. For my part, in view of the heroics of the hon. gentleman, I would rather the people of Canada paid that money, if it ought to be paid and if it be impossible to establish the liability of the Grand Trunk for it, than ask the people of Canada through their representatives to prostitute the authority that this Parliament has by attempting to pronounce judgment in a case which it has never heard-a violation of everything that is associated with the commonest idea of justice. It is the boast of the British people that that is the one fundamental thing that cannot be tolerated under any system where British justice is administered. That is the proposal; that is the only method that the hon. gentleman has to propose to meet this evil. I have only to ask the committee, in the light in which I am sure this amendment must present itself to them, to vote it down I had almost said to laugh it down.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I rise to ask my right hon. friend to state to the committee the context from which he has drawn the reference which he has quoted. He has read a statement of mine to the effect that the strike leaders had said to me that they were not interested in the matter of pensions one way or the other. That statement is absolutely correct. The statement is just as I gave it to this House and as it appears on Hansard. But if my hon. friend had done what I had expected him to do, he would have taken care to read the whole of the debate dealing with that particular matter. I do not think there need he much


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I ask hon.
gentlemen to permit me to make this statement. There will be no doubt as to the connection in which my statement was made. The point with regard to pensions was this: Mr. Lennox, at that time a member of the House, had asked whether the Government were not responsible in connection with the men not getting their pensions. Answer was made through a letter from one of the strike leaders in which he directed particular attention to the fact

that the matter of pensions was not discussed one way or the other at the conferences with the company. My statement has been on record and has never been taken exception to by the men. What I have said to-night has related to conferences between the company and the employees. The subject was never mentioned alt the conferences, buit apart from the conferences the strike leaders said to me-and I think they would say it Ito-day-that they did not believe in the business of pensions with companies, and the reason is found in the example given by this company: the pensions are used by companies as manacles upon freedom rather than as rewards for service. That is the connection in which I said I was surprised that the strike leaders took that position in regard to pensions. But when it comes to the obligation of the company, the company is bound in the agreement that they entered into with the leaders by what the understanding was at the table around which the discussion took , place. Certainly the understanding there was that the men should go back on the same status which they had before, and to the same positions. To my way of thinking, that includes pensions, whether the strike leaders wish it or not.
Amendment lost on division.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Mr. Chairman-


William Stevens Fielding: I want to suggest that there is no use in our sitting here for hours continuing this discussion. If hon. members on either side wish to speak further, the proper and sensible thing is for the committee to rise. My experience of alknight sessions has been that when we wake up the next morning we come to the conclusion that we hiad been playing a very foolish part. If the matter is to he the occasion of further discussion', I suggest that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I would like to meet
the hon. gentlemanie desire, but I may say that we carried on to this point without considering an earlier adjournment because we believed that there was a clear understanding that tlhe matter would he put through this evening.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There was no such understanding.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I certainly believed
that there was:	I am not disputing the
hon. gentleman's word in the slightest degree. Of course, if hon. gentlemen feel that they cannot do justice to what they

desire to say if we continue the present sitting, there is no wish to exercise any undue pressure, and I will yield to the suggestion made, though I shall be sorry if the desire is persisted in.


Jean-Joseph Denis: 
John Dowsley Reid: If the hon. member and ' others desire to speak at any length, we of course have no desire to push the Bill through. Perhaps the leader of the Opposition may wish that we report progress.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Several hon.
members have intimated to me a desire to speak on the Bill.


John Dowsley Reid: Then I move that we rise, report progress, and ask leave to sit again. Motion agreed to: progress reported.
On motion of Right Hon. Mr. Doherty, the House adjourned at 1.30 a.m.
Monday, April 19, 1920.